LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 


joth   YEAR taken  from  life. 


BY   WALT  ^WHITMAN 


PHILADELPHIA 

DAVID  McKAY,  23  SOUTH  NINTH  STREET 
1888 


Copyright,  1888,  by  WALT  WHITMAN. 


CONTENTS. 


A  BACKWARD  GLANCE  O'ER  TRAVEL' D  ROADS,  5 
SANDS  AT  SEVENTY: 


Mannahatta,  19 

Paumanok,  19 

From  Montauk  Point,  19 

To  Those  Who've  Fail'd,  19 

A  Carol  Closing  Sixty-Nine,  20 

The  Bravest  Soldiers,  20 

A  Font  of  Type,  20 

As  I  Sit  Writing  Here,  20 

My  Canary  Bird,  20 

Queries  to  My  Seventieth  Year,  21 

The  Wallabout  Martyrs,  21 

The  First  Dandelion,  21 

America,  21 

Memories,  21 

To-day  and  Thee,  22 

After  the  Dazzle  of  Day,  22 

Abraham    Lincoln,    born  Feb.    12, 

1809,  22 

Out  of  May's  Shows  Selected,  22 
Halcyon  Days,  22 
Fancies  at  Navesink,  23 

(The  Pilot  in  the  Mist— Had  I  the 
Choice— You  Tides  With  Ceaseless 
Swell— Last  of  Ebb,  and  Daylight 
Waning— And  Yet  Not  You  Alone— 
Proudly  the  Flood  Comes  In— By  That 

*  Long  Scan  of  Waves— Then  Last  of 
All.} 

Election  Day,  November,  1884,  25 


With      Husky-Haughty     Lips,    O 

Sea,  26 

Death  of  General  Grant,  26 
Red  Jacket  (from  Aloft,)  27 
Washington's  Monument,  February, 

1885,  27 

Of  That  Blithe  Throat  of  Thine,  28 
Broadway,  28 

To  Get  the  Final  Lilt  of  Songs,  28 
Old  Salt  Kossabone,  29 
The  Dead  Tenor,  29 
Continuities,  30 
Yonnondio,  30 
Life,  30 

"  Going  Somewhere,"  31 
Small  the  Theme  of  My  Chant,  31 
True  Conquerors,  31 
The  United  States  to  Old  World 

Critics,  32 

The  Calming  Thought  of  All,  32 
Thanks  in  Old  Age,  32 
Life  and  Death,  32 
The  Voice  of  the  Rain,  33 
Soon  Shall   the   Winter's  Foil  Be 

Here,  33 

While  Not  the  Past  Forgetting,  33 
The  Dying  Veteran,  34 
Stronger  Lessons,  34 
A  Prairie  Sunset,  34 

(3) 


299 


CONTENTS. 


Twenty  Years,  35 

Orange  Buds  by  Mail  From  Florida, 

35 

Twilight,  35 
You  Lingering  Sparse   Leaves   of 

Me,  36 
Not  Meagre,  Latent  Boughs  Alone, 

36 


The  Dead  Emperor,  36 

As  the  Greek's  Signal  Flame,  36 

The  Dismantled  Ship,  37 

Now   Precedent   Songs,   Farewell, 

37 

An  Evening  Lull,  37 
After  the  Supper  and  Talk,  38 


OUR  EMINENT  VISITORS,  PAST,  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE,  39 

THE  BIBLE  AS  POETRY,  43 

FATHER  TAYLOR  (AND  ORATORY,)  47 

THE  SPANISH  ELEMENT  IN  OUR  NATIONALITY,  50 

WHAT  LURKS  BEHIND  SHAKSPERE'S  HISTORICAL  PLAYS?  52 

A  THOUGHT  ON  SHAKSPERE,  55 

ROBERT  BURNS  AS  POET  AND  PERSON,  57 

A  WORD  ABOUT  TENNYSON,  65 

SLANG  IN  AMERICA,  68 

AN  INDIAN  BUREAU  REMINISCENCE,  73 

SOME  DIARY  NOTES  AT  RANDOM,  76 

(Negro  Slaves  in  New  York — Canada  Nights — Country  Days  and  Nights — Central 
Park  Notes— Plate  Glass,  St.  Louis.) 

SOME  WAR  MEMORANDA,  80 

("Yankee  Doodle"— Washington  Street  Scenes— The  iqjth  Pennsylvania— Left-hand 
Writing  by  Soldiers — Central  Virginia  in  '64 — Paying  the  First  Color' d  Troops.) 

FIVE  THOUSAND  POEMS,  86 

THE  OLD  BOWERY,  87 

NOTES  To  LATE  ENGLISH  BOOKS,  93 

(Preface  to  Reader  in  British  Islands— Additional  Nste,  1887— Preface  to  English 
Edition  "Democratic  Vistas.") 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  97 

NEW  ORLEANS  IN  1848 — TRIP  UP  THE  MISSISSIPPI,  &c.,  100 

SMALL  MEMORANDA,  105 

(Attorney  General's  Office,  Washington,  Aug.  22,  1865— Washington,  Sept.  8,  Q,  etc., 
/86s— A  Glint  Inside  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  Cabinet  Appointments  :  one  item  of  many 
— Note  to  a  Friend— Written  impromptu  in  an  album — The  place  gratitude  fills  in 
a  fine  character.) 

LAST  OF  THE  WAR  CASES,  109 
ELIAS  HICKS,  NOTES  (SUCH  AS  THEY  ARE,)  119 
George  Fox  and  Shakspere,  136 


A  BACKWARD  GLANCE  O'ER 
TRAVEL'D  ROADS. 

PERHAPS  the  best  of  songs  heard,  or  of  any  and  all  true  love,  or 
life's  fairest  episodes,  or  sailors',  soldiers'  trying  scenes  on  land 
or  sea,  is  the  resume  of  them,  or  any  of  them,  long  afterwards, 
looking  at  the  actualities  away  back  past,  with  all  their  practical 
excitations  gone.  How  the  soul  loves  to  float  amid  such  reminis 
cences  I 

So  here  I  sit  gossiping  in  the  early  candle-light  of  old  age — I 
and  my  book — casting  backward  glances  over  our  travel'd  road. 
After  completing,  as  it  were,  the  journey — (a  varied  jaunt  of 
years,  with  many  halts  and  gaps  of  intervals — q?  some  lengthen 'd 
ship-voyage,  wherein  more  than  once  the  last  hour  had  apparently 
arrived,  and  we  seem'd  certainly  going  down — yet  reaching  port 
in  a  sufficient  way  through  all  discomfitures  at  last) — After  com 
pleting  my  poems,  I  am  curious  to  review  them  in  the  light  of 
their  own  (at  the  time  unconscious,  or  mostly  unconscious)  inten 
tions,  with  certain  unfoldings  of  the  thirty  years  they  seek  to 
embody.  These  lines,  therefore,  will  probably  blend  the  weft 
of  first  purposes  and  speculations,  with  the  warp  of  that  expe 
rience  afterwards,  always  bringing  strange  developments. 

Result  of  seven  or  eight  stages  and  struggles  extending  through 
nearly  thirty  years,  (as  I  nigh  my  three-score-and-ten  I  live 
largely  on  memory,)  I  look  upon  "Leaves  of  Grass,"  now  fin- 
ish'd  to  the  end  of  its  opportunities  and  powers,  as  my  definitive 
carte  visite  to  the  coming  generations  of  the  New  World,*  if  I 
may  assume  to  say  so.  That  I  have  not  gain'd  the  acceptance  of 
my  own  time,  but  have  fallen  back  on  fond  dreams  of  the  future 
— anticipations — ("still  lives  the  song,  though  Regnar  dies")— 
That  from  a  worldly  and  business  point  of  view  "Leaves  of 
Grass"  has  been  worse  than  a  failure — that  public  criticism  on 
the  book  and  myself  as  author  of  it  yet  shows  mark'd  anger  and 
contempt  more  than  anything  else — ("I  find  a  solid  line  of  ene* 

*  When  Champollion,  on  his  death-bed,  handed  to  the  printer  the  revised 
proof  of  his  "  Egyptian  Grammar,"  he  said  gayly,  "  Be  careful  of  this — it  is 
my  carte  de  visite  to  posterity." 

(5) 


6  A   BACKWARD   GLANCE 

mies  to  you  everywhere," — letter  from  W.  S.  K.,  Boston,  May 
28,  1884) — And  that  solely  for  publishing  it  I  have  been  the 
object  of  two  or  three  pretty  serious  special  official  buffetings — is 
all  probably  no  more  than  I  ought  to  have  expected.  I  had  my 
choice  when  I  commenc'd.  I  bid  neither  for  soft  eulogies,  big 
money  returns,  nor  the  approbation  of  existing  schools  and  con 
ventions.  As  fulfill'd,  or  partially  fulfill'd,  the  best  comfort  of 
the  whole  business  (after  a  small  band  of  the  dearest  friends  and 
upholders  ever  vouchsafed  to  man  or  cause — doubtless  all  the  more 
faithful  and  uncompromising — this  little  phalanx  ! — for  being  so 
few)  is  that,  unstopp'd  and  unwarp'd  by  any  influence  outside  the 
soul  within  me,  I  have  had  my  say  entirely  my  own  way,  and  put 
it  unerringly  on  record — the  value  thereof  to  be  decided  by  time. 

In  calculating  that  decision,  William  O'Connor  and  Dr.  Bucke 
are  far  more  peremptory  than  I  am.  Behind  all  else  that  can  be 
said,  I  consider  "  Leaves  of  Grass  "  and  its  theory  experimental 
— as,  in  the  deepest  sense,  1  consider  our  American  republic 
itself  to  be,  with  its  theory.  (I  think  I  have  at  least  enough 
philosophy  not  to  be  too  absolutely  certain  of  any  thing,  or  any 
results.)  In  the  second  place,  the  volume  is  a  sortie — whether  to 
prove  triumphant,  and  conquer  its  field  of  aim  and  escape  and 
construction,  nothing  less  than  a  hundred  years  from  now  can 
fully  answer.  I  consider  the  point  that  I  have  positively  gain'd 
a  hearing,  to  far  more  than  make  up  for  any  and  all  other  lacks 
and  withholdings.  Essentially,  that  was  from  the  first,  and  has 
remain'd  throughout,  the  main  object.  Now  it  seems  to  be 
achiev'd,  I  am  certainly  contented  to  waive  any  otherwise 
momentous  drawbacks,  as  of  little  account.  Candidly  and  dis 
passionately  reviewing  all  my  intentions,  I  feel  that  they  were 
creditable — and  I  accept  the  result,  whatever  it  may  be. 

After  continued  personal  ambition  and  effort,  as  a  young  fel 
low,  to  enter  with  the  rest  into  competition  for  the  usual  rewards, 
business,  political,  literary,  &c. — to  take  part  in  the  great  m  lee, 
both  for  victory's  prize  itself  and  to  do  some  good — After  years 
of  those  aims  and  pursuits,  I  found  myself  remaining  possess'd, 
at  the  age  of  thirty-one  to  thirty-three,  with  a  special  desire  and 
conviction.  Or  rather,  to  be  quite  exact,  a  desire  that  had  been 
flitting  through  my  previous  life,  or  hovering  on  the  flanks, 
mostly  indefinite  hitherto,  had  steadily  advanced  to  the  front, 
defined  itself,  and  finally  dominated  everything  else.  This  was 
a  feeling  or  ambition  to  articulate  and  faithfully  express  in  liter 
ary  or  poetic  form,  and  uncompromisingly,  my  own  physical, 
emotional,  moral,  intellectual,  and  aesthetic  Personality,  in  the 
midst  of,  and  tallying,  the  momentous  spirit  and  facts  of  its  im 
mediate  days,  and  of  current  America — and  to  exploit  that  Per- 


O'ER   TRAVELED   ROADS.  y 

sonality,  identified  with  place  and  date,  in  a  far  more  candid  and 
comprehensive  sense  than  any  hitherto  poem  or  book. 

Perhaps  this  is  in  brief,  or  suggests,  all  I  have  sought  to  do. 
Given  the  Nineteenth  Century,  with  the  United  States,  and  what 
they  furnish  as  area  and  points  of  view,  "  Leaves  of  Grass  "  is,  or 
seeks  to  be,  simply  a  faithful  and  doubtless  self-will'd  record.  In 
the  midst  of  all,  it  gives  one  man's — the  author's — identity,  ar 
dors,  observations,  faiths,  and  thoughts,  color'd  hardly  at  all 
with  any  decided  coloring  frt>m  other  faiths  or  other  identities. 
Plenty  of  songs  had  been  sung — beautiful,  matchless  songs — ad 
justed  to  other  lands  than  these — another  spirit  and  stage  of  evo 
lution  ;  but  I  would  sing,  and  leave  out  or  put  in,  quite  solely 
with  reference  to  America  and  to-day.  Modern  science  and 
democracy  seem'd  to  be  throwing  out  their  challenge  to  poetry 
to  put  them  in  its  statements  in  contradistinction  to  the  songs 
and  myths  of  the  past.  As  I  see  it  now  (perhaps  too  late,)  I 
have  unwittingly  taken  up  that  challenge  and  made  an  attempt  at 
such  statements — which  I  certainly  would  not  assume  to  do  now, 
knowing  more  clearly  what  it  means. 

For  grounds  for  "  Leaves  of  Grass,"  as  a  poem,  I  abandon'd 
the  conventional  themes,  which  do  not  appear  in  it :  none 
of  the  stock  ornamentation,  or  choice  plots  of  love  or  war,  or 
high,  exceptional  personages  of  Old- World  song;  nothing,  as  I 
may  say,  for  beauty's  sake — no  legend,  or  myth,  or  romance,  nor 
euphemism,  nor  rhyme.  But  the  broadest  average  of  humanity 
and  its  identities  in  the  now  ripening  Nineteenth  Century,  and 
especially  in  each  of  their  countless  examples  and  practical  occu 
pations  in  the  United  States  to-day. 

One  main  contrast  of  the  ideas  behind  every  page  of  my  verses, 
compared  with  establish' d  poems,  is  their  different  relative  atti 
tude  towards  God,  towards  the  objective  universe,  and  still  more 
(by  reflection,  confession,  assumption,  &c.)  the  quite  changed 
attitude  of  the  ego,  the  one  chanting  or  talking,  towards  himself 
and  towards  his  fellow-humanity.  It  is  certainly  time  for  Amer 
ica,  above  all,  to  begin  this  readjustment  in  the  scope  and  basic 
point  of  view  of  verse ;  for  everything  else  has  changed.  As  I 
write,  I  see  in  an  article  on  Wordsworth,  in  one  of  the  current 
English  magazines,  the  lines,  "A  few  weeks  ago  an  eminent 
French  critic  said  that,  owing  to  the  special  tendency  to  science 
and  to  its  all-devouring  force,  poetry  would  cease  to  be  read  in 
fifty  years."  But  I  anticipate  the  very  contrary.  Only  a  firmer, 
vastly  broader,  new  area  begins  to  exist — nay,  is  already  form'd 
— to  which  the  poetic  genius  must  emigrate.  Whatever  may  have 
been  the  case  in  years  gone  by,  the  true  use  for  the  imaginative 
faculty  of  modern  times  is  to  give  ultimate  vivification  to  facts, 


8  A  BACKWARD    GLANCE 

to  science,  and  to  common  lives,  endowing  them  with  the  glows 
and  glories  and  final  illustriousness  which  belong  to  every  real 
thing,  and  to  real  things  only.  Without  that  ultimate  vivifica- 
tion — which  the  poet  or  other  artist  alone  can  give — reality 
would  seem  incomplete,  and  science,  democracy,  and  life  itself, 
finally  in  vain. 

Few  appreciate  the  moral  revolutions,  our  age,  which  have 
been  profounder  far  than  the  material  or  inventive  or  war-pro 
duced  ones.  The  Nineteenth  Century,  now  well  towards .  its 
close  (and  ripening  into  fruit  the  seeds  of  the  two  preceding  cen 
turies*) — the  uprisings  of  national  masses  and  shiftings  of  bound 
ary-lines — the  historical  and  other  prominent  facts  of  the  United 
States — the  war  of  attempted  Secession — the  stormy  rush  and 
haste  of  nebulous  forces — never  can  future  years  witness  more 
excitement  and  din  of  action — never  completer  change  of  army 
front  along  the  whole  line,  the  whole  civilized  world.  For  all 
these  new  and  evolutionary  facts,  meanings,  purposes,  new  poetic 
messages,  new  forms  and  expressions,  are  inevitable. 

My  Book  and  I — what  a  period  we  have  presumed  to  span  ! 
those  thirty  years  from  1850  to  '80 — and  America  in  them  ! 
Proud,  proud  indeed  may  we  be,  if  we  have  cull'd  enough  of 
that  period  in  its  own  spirit  to  worthily  waft  a  few  live  breaths 
of  it  to  the  future  ! 

Let  me  not  dare,  here  or  anywhere,  for  my  own  purposes,  or 
any  purposes,  to  attempt  the  definition  of  Poetry,  nor  answer  the 
question  what  it  is.  Like  Religion,  Love,  Nature,  while  those 
terms  are  indispensable,  and  we  all  give  a  sufficiently  accurate 
meaning  to  them,  in  my  opinion  no  definition  that  has  ever  been 
made  sufficiently  encloses  the  name  Poetry ;  nor  can  any  rule  or 
convention  ever  so  absolutely  obtain  but  some  great  exception 
may  arise  and  disregard  and  overturn  it. 

Also  it  must  be  carefully  remember'd  that  first-class  literature 
does  not  shine  by  any  luminosity  of  its  own  ;  nor  do  its  poems. 
They  grow  of  circumstances,  and  are  evolutionary.  The  actual 
living  light  is  always  curiously  from  elsewhere — follows  unac 
countable  sources,  and  is  lunar  and  relative  at  the  best.  There 
are,  I  know,  certain  controling  themes  that  seem  endlessly  ap 
propriated  to  the  poets — as  war,  in  the  past — in  the  Bible,  relig 
ious  rapture  and  adoration — always  love,  beauty,  some  fine  plot, 


*  The  ferment  and  germination  even  of  the  Unked  States  to-day,  dating 
back  to,  and  in  my  opinion  mainly  founded  on,  the  Elizabethan  age  in  Eng 
lish  history,  the  age  of  Francis  Bacon  and  Shakspere.  Indeed,  when  we 
pursue  it,  what  growth  or  advent  is  there  that  does  not  date  back,  back,  until 
lost — perhaps  its  most  tantalizing  clues  lost — in  the  receded  horizons  of  the 
past? 


O'ER   TRAVELED  ROADS.  9, 

or  pensive  or  other  emotion.  But,  strange  as  it  may  sound  at 
first,  I  will  say  there  is  something  striking  far  deeper  and  tower 
ing  far  higher  than  those  themes  for  the  best  elements  of  modern- 
song. 

Just  as  all  the  old  imaginative  works  rest,  after  their  kind,  on 
long  trains  of  presuppositions,  often  entirely  unmention'd  by 
themselves,  yet  supplying  the  most  important  bases  of  them,  and 
without  which  they  could  have  had  no  reason  for  being,  so 
11  Leaves  of  Grass,"  before  a  line  was  written,  presupposed  some 
thing  different  from  any  other,  and,  as  it  stands,  is  the  result  of 
such  presupposition.  I  should  say,  indeed,  it  were  useless  to  at 
tempt  reading  the  book  without  first  carefully  tallying  that  pre 
paratory  background  and  quality  in  the  mind.  Think  of  the 
United  States  to-day — the  facts  of  these  thirty-eight  or  forty 
empires  solder'd  in  one — sixty  or  seventy  millions  of  equals,  with, 
their  lives,  their  passions,  their  future — these  incalculable,  mod 
ern,  American,  seething  multitudes  around  us,  of  which  we  are 
inseparable  parts  !  Think,  in  comparison,  of  the  petty  environ- 
age  and  limited  area  of  the  poets  of  past  or  present  Europe,  no. 
matter  how  great  their  genius.  Think  of  the  absence  and  igno 
rance,  in  all  cases  hitherto,  of  the  multitudinousness,  vitality, 
and  the  unprecedented  stimulants  of  to-day  and  here.  It  almost 
seems  as  if  a  poetry  with  cosmic  and  dynamic  features  of  magni 
tude  and  limitlessness  suitable  to  the  human  soul,  were  never 
possible  before.  It  is  certain  that  a  poetry  of  absolute  faith  and 
equality  for  the  use  of  the  democratic  masses  never  was. 

In  estimating  first-class  song,  a  sufficient  Nationality,  or,  on 
the  other  hand,  what  may  be  call'd  the  negative  and  lack  of  it, 
(as  in  Goethe's  case,  it  sometimes  seems  to  me,)  is  often,  if  not 
always,  the  first  element.  One  needs  only  a  little  penetration  to. 
see,  at  more  or  less  removes,  the  material  facts  of  their  country 
and  radius,  with  the  coloring  of  the  moods  of  humanity  at  the. 
time,  and  its  gloomy  or  hopeful  prospects,  behind  all  poets  and 
each  poet,  and  forming  their  birth-marks.  I  know  very  well 
that  my  "  Leaves"  could  not  possibly  have  emerged  or  been 
fashion 'd  or  completed,  from  any  other  era  than  the  latter  half 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  nor  any  other  land  than  democratic 
America,  and  from  the  absolute  triumph  of  the  National  Union, 
arms. 

And  whether  my  friends  claim  it  for  me  or  not,  I  know  well 
enough,  too,  that  in  respect  to  pictorial  talent,  dramatic  situa 
tions,  and  especially  in  verbal  melody  and  all  the  conventional 
technique  of  poetry,  not  only  the  divine  works  that  to-day  stand 
ahead  in  the  world's  reading,  but  dozens  more,  transcend  (some 
of  them  immeasurably  transcend)  all  I  have  done,  or  could  do.. 


I0  A  BACKWARD   GLANCE 

But  it  seem'd  to  me,  as  the  objects  in  Nature,  the  themes  of 
aestheticism,  and  all  special  exploitations  of  the  mind  and  soul, 
involve  not  only  their  own  inherent  quality,  but  the  quality,  just 
as  inherent  and  important,  of  their  point  of  view,*  the  time  had 
come  to  reflect  all  themes  and  things,  old  and  new,  in  the  lights 
thrown  on  them  by  the  advent  of  America  and  democracy — to 
chant  those  themes  through  the  utterance  of  one,  not  only  the 
grateful  and  reverent  legatee  of  the  past,  but  the  born  child  of 
the  New  World — to  illustrate  all  through  the  genesis  and  ensem 
ble  of  to-day ;  and  that  such  illustration  and  ensemble  are  the 
chief  demands  of  America's  prospective  imaginative  literature. 
Not  to  carry  out,  in  the  approved  style,  some  choice  plot  of 
fortune  or  misfortune,  or  fancy,  or  fine  thoughts,  or  incidents, 
or  courtesies — all  of  which  has  been  done  overwhelmingly  and 
well,  probably  never  to  be  excell'd — but  that  while  in  such 
aesthetic  presentation  of  objects,  passions,  plots,  thoughts,  &c., 
our  lands  and  days  do  not  want,  and  probably  will  never  have, 
anything  better  than  they  already  possess  from  the  bequests  of 
the  past,  it  still  remains  to  be  said  that  there  is  even  towards  all 
those  a  subjective  and  contemporary  point  of  view  appropriate 
to  ourselves  alone,  and  to  our  new  genius  and  environments, 
different  from  anything  hitherto ;  and  that  such  conception  of 
current  or  gone-by  life  and  art  is  for  us  the  only  means  of  their 
assimilation  consistent  with  the  Western  world. 

Indeed,  and  anyhow,  to  put  it  specifically,  has  not  the  time 
arrived  when,  (if  it  must  be  plainly  said,  for  democratic  Amer 
ica's  sake,  if  for  no  other)  there  must  imperatively  come  a 
readjustment  of  the  whole  theory  and  nature  of  Poetry  ?  The 
question  is  important,  and  I  may  turn  the  argument  over  and 
repeat  it :  Does  not  the  best  thought  of  our  day  and  Republic 
conceive  of  a  birth  and  spirit  of  song  superior  to  anything  past 
or  present  ?  To  the  effectual  and  moral  consolidation  of  our 
lands  (already,  as  materially  establish'd,  the  greatest  factors  in 
known  history,  and  far,  far  greater  through  what  they  prelude 
and  necessitate,  and  are  to  be  in  future) — to  conform  with  and 
build  on  the  concrete  realities  and  theories  of  the  universe  fur- 
nish'd  by  science,  and  henceforth  the  only  irrefragable  basis 
for  anything,  verse  included— to  root  both  influences  in  the 
emotional  and  imaginative  action  of  the  modern  time,  and 
dominate  all  that  precedes  or  opposes  them — is  not  either  a 
radical  advance  and  step  forward,  or  a  new  verteber  of  the  best 
song  indispensable? 

*  According  to  Immanuel  Kant,  the  last  essential  reality,  giving  shape  and 
significance  to  all  the  rest. 


O'ER   TRAVEL'D  ROADS.  ZI 

The  New  World  receives  with  joy  the  poems  of  the  antique, 
with  European  feudalism's  rich  fund  of  epics,  plays,  ballads — 
seeks  not  in  the  last  to  deaden  or  displace  those  voices  from  our 
ear  and  area — holds  them  indeed  as  indispensable  studies,  influ 
ences,  records,  comparisons.  But  though  the  dawn-dazzle  of  the 
sun  of  literature  is  in  those  poems  for  us  of  to-day — though 
perhaps  the  best  parts  of  current  character  in  nations,  social 
groups,  or  any  man's  or  woman's  individuality,  Old  World  or 
New,  are  from  them — and  though  if  I  were  ask'd  to  name  the 
most  precious  bequest  to  current  American  civilization  from  all 
the  hitherto  ages,  I  am  not  sure  but  I  would  name  those  old  and 
less  old  songs  ferried  hither  from  east  and  west — some  serious 
words  and  debits  remain  ;  some  acrid  considerations  demand  a 
hearing.  Of  the  great  poems  receiv'd  from  abroad  and  from  the 
ages,  and  to-day  enveloping  and  penetrating  America,  is  there 
one  that  is  consistent  with  these  United  States,  or  essentially 
applicable  to  them  as  they  are  and  are  to  be  ?  Is  there  one 
whose  underlying  basis  is  riot  a  denial  and  insult  to  democracy? 
What  a  comment  it  forms,  anyhow,  on  this  era  of  literary 
fulfilment,  with  the  splendid  day-rise  of  science  and  resuscitation 
of  history,  that  our  chief  religious  and  poetical  works  are  not  our 
own,  nor  adapted  to  our  light,  but  have  been  furnish'd  by  far- 
back  ages  out  of  their  arriere  and  darkness,  or,  at  most,  twilight 
dimness  !  What  is  there  in  those  works  that  so  imperiously  and 
scornfully  dominates  all  our  advanced  civilization,  and  culture  ? 

Even  Shakspere,  who  so  suffuses  current  letters  and  art  (which 
indeed  have  in  most  degrees  grown  out  of  him,)  belongs  essen 
tially  to  the  buried  past.  Only  he  holds  the  proud  distinction 
for  certain  important  phases  of  that  past,  of  being  the  loftiest  of 
the  singers  life  has  yet  given  voice  to.  All,  however,  relate  to 
and  rest  upon  conditions,  standards,  politics,  sociologies,  ranges 
of  belief,  that  have  been  quite  eliminated  from  the  Eastern  hem 
isphere,  and  never  existed  at  all  in  the  Western.  As  authorita 
tive  types  of  song  they  belong  in  America  just  about  as  much  as 
the  persons  and  institutes  they  depict.  True,  it  may  be  said,  the 
emotional,  moral,  and  aesthetic  natures  of  humanity  have  not 
radically  changed — that  in  these  the  old  poems  apply  to  our  times 
and  all  times,  irrespective  of  date ;  and  that  they  are  of  incal 
culable  value  as  pictures  of  the  past.  I  willingly  make  those 
admissions,  and  to  their  fullest  extent ;  then  advance  the  points 
herewith  as  of  serious,  even  paramount  importance. 

I  have  indeed  put  on  record  elsewhere  my  reverence  and  eulogy 
for  those  never-to-be-excell'd  poetic  bequests,  and  their  indescrib 
able  preciousness  as  heirlooms  for  America.  Another  and  sepa 
rate  point  must  now  be  candidly  stated.  If  I  had  not  stood 


12  A  BACKWARD  GLANCE 

before  those  poems  with  uncover'd  head,  fully  aware  of  their 
colossal  grandeur  and  beauty  of  form  and  spirit,  I  could  not  have 
written  "  Leaves  of  Grass."  My  verdict  and  conclusions  as 
illustrated  in  its  pages  are  arrived  at  through  the  temper  and  in 
culcation  of  the  old  works  as  much  as  through  anything  else — 
perhaps  more  than  through  anything  else.  As  America  fully  and 
fairly  construed  is  the  legitimate  result  and  evolutionary  outcome 
of  the  past,  so  I  would  dare  to  claim  for  my  verse.  Without 
stopping  to  qualify  the  averment,  the  Old  World  has  had  the 
poems  of  myths,  fictions,  feudalism,  conquest,  caste,  dynastic 
wars,  and  splendid  exceptional  characters  and  affairs,  which  have 
been  great ;  but  the  New  WTorld  needs  the  poems  of  realities  and 
science  and  of  the  democratic  average  and  basic  equality,  which 
shall  be  greater.  In  the  centre  of  all,  and  object  of  all,  stands 
the  Human  Being,  towards  whose  heroic  and  spiritual  evolution 
poems  and  everything  directly  or  indirectly  tend,  Old  World  or 
New. 

Continuing  the  subject,  my  friends  have  more  than  9nce  sug 
gested — or  may  be  the  garrulity  of  advancing  age  is  possessing 
me — some  further  embryonic  facts  of  "  Leaves  of  Grass,"  and 
especially  how  I  enter' d  upon  them.  Dr.  Bucke  has,  in  his  vol 
ume,  already  fully  and  fairly  described  the  preparation  of  my 
poetic  field,  with  the  particular  and  general  plowing,  planting, 
seeding,  and  occupation  of  the  ground,  till  everything  was  fer 
tilized,  rooted,  and  ready  to  start  its  own  way  for  good  or  bad. 
Not  till  after  all  this,  did  I  attempt  any  serious  acquaintance  with 
poetic  literature.  Along  in  my  sixteenth  year  I  had  become 
possessor  of  a  stout,  well-cramfn'd  one  thousand  page  octavo 
volume  (I  have  it  yet,)  containing  Walter  Scott's  poetry  entire — 
an  inexhaustible  mine  and  treasury  of  poetic  forage  (especially 
the  endless  forests  and  jungles  of  notes) — has  been  so  to  me  for 
fifty  years,  and  remains  so  to  this  day.* 

Later,  at  intervals,  summers  and  falls,  I  used  to  go  off,  some 
times  for  a  week  at  a  stretch,  down  in  the  country,  or  to  Long 
Island's  seashores — there,  in  the  presence  of  outdoor  influences, 

*  Sir  Walter  Scott's  COMPLETE  POEMS  ;  especially  including  BORDER  MIN 
STRELSY;  then  Sir  Tristrem ;  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel;  Ballads  from  the 
German  ;  Marmion  ;  Lady  of  the  Lake ;  Vision  of  Don  Roderick  ;  Lord  of 
the  Isles ;  Rokeby ;  Bridal  of  Triermain  ;  Field  of  Waterloo ;  Harold  the 
Dauntless;  all  the  Dramas;  various  Introductions,  endless  interesting  Notes, 
and  Essays  on  Poetry,  Romance,  &c. 

Lockhart's  1833  (or  '34)  edition  with  Scott's  latest  and  copious  revisions 
and  annotations.  (All  the  poems  were  thoroughly  read  by  me,  but  the  ballads 
of  the  Border  Minstrelsy  over  and  over  again.) 


O'ER  TRAVEL* D  ROADS,  !3 

I  went  over  thoroughly  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  and  ab- 
sorb'd  (probably  to  better  advantage  for  me  than  in  any  library 
or  indoor  room — it  makes  such  difference  where  you  read,)  Shak- 
spere,  Ossian,  the  best  translated  versions  I  could  get  of  Homer, 
Eschylus,  Sophocles,  the  old  German  Nibelungen,  the  ancient 
Hindoo  poems,  and  one  or  two  other  masterpieces,  Dante's 
among  them.  As  it  happen'd,  I  read  the  latter  mostly  in  an  old 
wood.  The  Iliad  (Buckley's  prose  version,)  I  read  first  thor 
oughly  on  the  peninsula  of  Orient,  northeast  end  of  Long  Island, 
in  a  shelter'd  hollow  of  rocks  and  sand,  with  the  sea  on  each  side. 
(I  have  wonder'd  since  why  I  was  not  overwhelm'd  by  those 
mighty  masters.  Likely  because  I  read  them,  as  described,  in 
the  full  presence  of  Nature,  under  the  sun,  with  the  far-spreading 
landscape  and  vistas,  or  the  sea  rolling  in.) 

Toward  the  last  I  had  among  much  else  look'd  over  Edgar 
Poe's  poems — of  which  I  was  not  an  admirer,  tho'  I  always 
saw  that  beyond  their  limited  range  of  melody  (like  perpetual 
chimes  of  music  bells,  ringing  from  lower  b  flat  up  to  g)  they 
were  melodious  expressions,  and  perhaps  never  excell'd  ones,  of 
certain  pronounc'd  phases  of  human  morbidity.  (The  Poetic 
area  is  very  spacious — has  room  for  all — has  so  many  mansions  !) 
But  I  was  repaid  in  Poe's  prose  by  the  idea  that  (at  any  rate  for 
our  occasions,  our  day)  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  a  long 
poem.  The  same  thought  had  been  haunting  my  mind  before, 
but  Poe's  argument,  though  short,  work'd  the  sum  out  and  proved 
it  to  me. 

Another  point  had  an  early  settlement,  clearing  the  ground 
greatly.  I  saw,  from  the  time  my  enterprise  and  questionings 
positively  shaped  themselves  (how  best  can  I  express  my  own 
distinctive  era  and  surroundings,  America,  Democracy  ?)  that  the 
trunk  and  centre  whence  the  answer  was  to  radiate,  and  to  which 
all  should  return  from  straying  however  far  a  distance,  must  be 
an  identical  body  and  soul,  a  personality — which  personality, 
after  many  considerations  and  ponderings  I  deliberately  settled 
should  be  myself — indeed  could  not  be  any  other.  I  also  felt 
strongly  (whether  I  have  shown  it  or  not)  that  to  the  true  and 
full  estimate  of  the  Present  both  the  Past  and  the  Future  are  main 
considerations. 

These,  however,  and  much  more  might  have  gone  on  and  come 
to  naught  (almost  positively  would  have  come  to  naught,)  if  a 
sudden,  vast,  terrible,  direct  and  indirect  stimulus  for  new  and 
national  declamatory  expression  had  not  been  given  to  me.  It 
is  certain,  I  say,  that,  although  I  had  made  a  start  before,  only 
from  the  occurrence  of  the  Secession  War,  and  what  it  show'd 
me  as  by  flashes  of  lightning,  with  the  emotional  depths  it  sounded 


I4  A  BACKWARD  GLANCE 

and  arous'd  (of  course,  I  don't  mean  in  my  own  heart  only,  I 
saw  it  just  as  plainly  in  others,  in  millions) — that  only  from  the 
strong  flare  and  provocation  of  that  war's  sights  and  scenes  the 
final  reasons-for-being  of  an  autochthonic  and  passionate  song 
definitely  came  forth. 

I  went  down  to  the  war  fields  in  Virginia  (end  of  1862),  lived 
thenceforward  in  camp — saw  great  battles  and  the  days  and  nights 
afterward — partook  of  all  the  fluctuations,  gloom,  despair,  hopes 
again  arous'd,  courage  evoked — death  readily  risk'd — the  cause, 
too — along  and  filling  those  agonistic  and  lurid  following  years, 
i863-'64~'65 — the  real  parturition  years  (more  than  i776-'83) 
of  this  henceforth  homogeneous  Union.  Without  those  three  or 
four  years  and  the  experiences  they  gave,  ' '  Leaves  of  Grass ' ' 
would  not  now  be  existing. 

But  I  set  out  with  the  intention  also  of  indicating  or  hinting 
some  point-characteristics  which  I  since  see  (though  I  did  not 
then,  at  least  not  definitely)  were  bases  and  object-urgings  toward 
those  "  Leaves"  from  the  first.  The  word  I  myself  put  prima 
rily  for  the  description  of  them  as  they  stand  at  last,  is  the  word 
Suggestiveness.  I  round  and  finish  little,  if  anything ;  and  could 
not,  consistently  with  my  scheme.  The  reader  will  always  have 
his  or  her  part  to  do,  just  as  much  as  I  have  had  mine.  I  seek 
less  to  state  or  display  any  theme  or  thought,  and  more  to  bring 
you,  reader,  into  the  atmosphere  of  the  theme  or  thought — there 
to  pursue  your  own  flight.  Another  impetus-word  is  Comrade 
ship  as  for  all  lands,  and  in  a  more  commanding  and  acknowledg'd 
sense  than  hitherto.  Other  word-signs  would  be  Good  Cheer, 
Content,  and  Hope. 

The  chief  trait  of  any  given  poet  is  always  the  spirit  he  brings 
to  the  observation  of  Humanity  and  Nature — the  mood  out  of 
which  he  contemplates  his  subjects.  What  kind  of  temper  and 
what  amount  of  faith  report  these  things?  Up  to  how  recent  a 
date  is  the  song  carried?  What  the  equipment,  and  special  raci- 
ness  of  the  singer — what  his  tinge  of  coloring?  The  last  value 
of  artistic  expressers,  past  and  present — Greek  aesthetes,  Shak- 
spere — or  in  our  own  day  Tennyson,  Victor  Hugo,  Carlyle,  Em 
erson — is  certainly  involv'd  in  such  questions.  I  say  the  pro- 
foundest  service  that  poems  or  any  other  writings  can  do  for  their 
reader  is  not  merely  to  satisfy  the  intellect,  or  supply  something 
polish'd  and  interesting,  nor  even  to  depict  great  passions,  or 
persons  or  events,  but  to  fill  him  with  vigorous  and  clean  manli 
ness,  religiousness,  and  give  him  good  heart  as  a  radical  posses 
sion  and  habit.  The  educated  world  seems  to  have  been  growing 
more  and  more  ennuyed  for  ages,  leaving  to  our  time  the  inheri- 


O'ER   TRAVEDD  ROADS.  !$ 

tance  of  it  all.  Fortunately  there  is  the  original  inexhaustible 
fund  of  buoyancy,  normally  resident  in  the  race,  forever  eligible 
to  be  appeal'd  to  and  relied  on. 

As  for  native  American  individuality,  though  certain  to  come, 
and  on  a  large  scale,  the  distinctive  and  ideal  type  of  Western 
character  (as  consistent  with  the  operative  political  and  even 
money-making  features  of  United  States'  humanity  in  the  Nine 
teenth  Century  as  chosen  knights,  gentlemen  and  warriors  were 
the  ideals  of  the  centuries  of  European  feudalism)  it  has  not  yet 
appear'd.  I  have  allow'd  the  stress  of  my  poems  from  beginning 
to  end  to  bear  upon  American  individuality  and  assist  it — not 
only  because  that  is  a  great  lesson  in  Nature,  amid  all  her  gener 
alizing  laws,  but  as  counterpoise  to  the  leveling  tendencies  of 
Democracy — and  for  other  reasons.  Defiant  of  ostensible  literary 
and  other  conventions,  I  avowedly  chant  "  the  great  pride  of 
man  in  himself,"  and  permit  it  to  be  more  or  less  a  motif  of 
nearly  all  my  verse.  I  think  this  pride  indispensable  to  an 
American.  I  think  it  not  inconsistent  with  obedience,  humility, 
deference,  and  self-questioning. 

Democracy  has  been  so  retarded  and  jeopardized  by  powerful 
personalities,  that  its  first  instincts  are  fain  to  clip,  conform, 
bring  in  stragglers,  and  reduce  everything  to  a  dead  level.  While 
the  ambitious  thought  of  my  song  is  to  help  the  forming  of  a  great 
aggregate  Nation,  it  is,  perhaps,  altogether  through  the  forming 
of  myriads  of  fully  develop'd  and  enclosing  individuals.  Wel 
come  as  are  equality's  and  fraternity's  doctrines  and  popular  edu 
cation,  a  certain  liability  accompanies  them  all,  as  we  see.  That 
primal  and  interior  something  in  man,  in  his  soul's  abysms,  col 
oring  all,  and,  by  exceptional  fruitions,  giving  the  last  majesty 
to  him — something  continually  touch'd  upon  and  attain'd  by  the 
old  poems  and  ballads  of  feudalism,  and  often  the  principal 
foundation  of  them — modern  science  and  democracy  appear  to 
be  endangering,  perhaps  eliminating.  But  that  forms  an  appear 
ance  only ;  the  reality  is  quite  different.  The  new  influences, 
upon  the  whole,  are  surely  preparing  the  way  for  grander  indivi 
dualities  than  ever.  To-day  and  here  personal  force  is  behind 
everything,  just  the  same.  The  times  and  depictions  from  the 
Iliad  to  Shakspere  inclusive  can  happily  never  again  be  realized — 
but  the  elements  of  courageous  and  lofty  manhood  are  un 
changed. 

Without  yielding  an  inch  the  working-man  and  working- 
woman  were  to  be  in  my  pages  from  first  to  last.  The  ranges 
of  heroism  and  loftiness  with  which  Greek  and  feudal  poets  en 
dow' d  their  god-like  or  lordly  born  characters — indeed  prouder 
and  better  based  and  with  fuller  ranges  than  those — I  was  to 


T6  A  BACK  WARD  GLANCE 

endow  the  democratic  averages  of  America.  I  was  to  show  that 
we,  here  and  to-day,  are  eligible  to  the  grandest  and  the  best — 
more  eligible  now  than  any  times  of  old  were.  I  will  also  want 
•my  utterances  (I  said  to  myself  before  beginning)  to  be  in  spirit 
the  poems  of  the  morning.  (They  have  been  founded  and 
mainly  written  in  the  sunny  forenoon  and  early  midday  of  my 
life.)  I  will  want  them  to  be  the  poems  of  women  entirely  as 
much  as  men.  I  have  wish'd  to  put  the  complete  Union  of  the 
States  in  my  songs  without  any  preference  or  partiality  whatever. 
Henceforth,  if  they  live  and  are  read,  it  must  be  just  as  much 
South  as  North — just  as  much  along  the  Pacific  as  Atlantic — in 
the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  in  Canada,  up  in  Maine,  down  in 
Texas,  and  on  the  shores  of  Puget  Sound. 

From  another  point  of  view  "Leaves  of  Grass"  i«  — -.-M«»- J1 
the  song  of  Sex  and  Amativeness,  and  even  Animahty — 
meanings  that  do  not  usually  go  along  with  those  words  are  L 
hind  all,  and  will  duly  emerge ;  and  all  are  sought  to  be  lifted 
into  a  different  light  and  atmosphere.  Of  this  feature,  inten 
tionally  palpable  in  a  few  lines,  I  shall  only  say  the  espousing 
principle  of  those  lines  so  gives  breath  of  life  to  my  whole  scheme 
that  the  bulk  of  the  pieces  might  as  well  have  been  left  unwritten 
were  those  lines  omitted.  Difficult  as  it  will  be,  it  has  become, 
in  my  opinion,  imperative  to  achieve  a  shifted  attitude  from  su 
perior  men  and  women  towards  the  thought  and  fact  of  sexuality, 
as  an  element  in  character,  personality,  the  emotions,  and  a 
theme  in  literature.  I  am  not  going  to  argue  the  question  by 
itself;  it  does  not  stand  by  itself.  The  vitality  of  it  is  altogether 
in  its  relations,  bearings,  significance — like  the  clef  of  a  sym 
phony.  At  last  analogy  the  lines  I  allude  to,  and  the  spirit  in 
which  they  are  spoken*  permeate  all  "  Leaves  of  Grass,"  and  the 
work  must  stand  or  fall  with  them,  as  the  human  body  and  soul 
must  remain  as  an  entirety. 

Universal  as  are  certain  facts  and  symptoms  of  communities  or 
individuals  all  times,  there  is  nothing  so  rare  in  modern  conven 
tions  and  poetry  as  their  normal  recognizance.  Literature  is 
always  calling  in  the  doctor  for  consultation  and  confession,  and 
always  giving  evasions  and  swathing  suppressions  in  place  of  that 
"  heroic  nudity  "  *  on  which  only  a  genuine  diagnosis  of  serious 
rases  can  be  built.  And  in  respect  to  editions  of  "  Leaves  of 
•Grass  "  in  time  to  come  (if  there  should  be  such)  I  take  occasion 
now  to  confirm  those  lines  with  the  settled  convictions  and  delib 
erate  renewals  of  thirty  years,  and  to  hereby  prohibit,  as  far  as 
word  of  mine  can  do  so,  any  elision  of  them. 

*"  Nineteenth  Century,"  July,  1883. 


O'ER   TRAVELED  ROADS.  !7 

Then  still  a  purpose  enclosing  all,  and  over  and  beneath  alL 
Ever  since  what  might  be  call'd  thought,  or  the  budding  of 
thought,  fairly  began  in  my  youthful  mind,  I  had  had  a  desire  to 
attempt  some  worthy  record  of  that  entire  faith  and  acceptance 
("'to  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man  "  is  Milton's  well-known 
and  ambitious  phrase)  which  is  the  foundation  of  moral  America. 
I  felt  it  all  as  positively  then  in  my  young  days  as  I  do  now  in 
my  old  ones ;  to  formulate  a  poem  whose  every  thought  or  fact 
should  directly  or  indirectly  be  or  connive  at  an.  implicit  belief 
in  the  wisdom,  health,  mystery,  beauty  of  every  process,  every 
concrete  object,  every  human  or  other  existence,  not  only  con- 
sider'd  from  the  point  of  view  of  all,  but  of  each. 

While  I  can  not  understand  it  or  argue  it  out,  I  fully  believe 

-nd  purpose  in   Nature,  entire  and  several;  and  that 

ole' spiritual  results,  just  as  real  and  definite  as  the  visible, 

vchtuate  all  concrete   life  and  all   materialism,  through  Time. 

My  book  ought  to  emanate  buoyancy  and  gladness  legitimately 

enough,  for  it  was  grown  out  of  those  elements,  and  has  been  the 

comfort  of  my  life  since  it  was  originally  commenced. 

One  main  genesis-motive  of  the  "  Leaves"  was  my  conviction 
(just  as  strong  to-day  as  ever)  that  the  crowning  growth  of  the 
United  States  is  to  be  spiritual  and  heroic.  To  help  start  and 
favor  that  growth — or  even  to  call  attention  to  it,  or  the  need  of 
it — is  the  beginning,  middle  and  final  purpose  of  the  poems. 
(In  fact,  when  really  cipher'd  out  and  summ'd  to  the  last,  plow 
ing  up  in  earnest  the  interminable  average  fallows  of  humanity — 
not  "good  government"  merely,  in  the  common  sense — is  the 
justification  and  main  purpose  of  these  United  States.) 

Isolated  advantages  in  any  rank  or  grace  or  fortune — the  direct 
or  indirect  threads  of  all  the  poetry  of  the  past — are  in  my  opin 
ion  distasteful  to  the  republican  genius,  and  offer  no  foundation 
for  its  fitting  verse.  Establish'd  poems,  I  know,  have  the  very 
great  advantage  of  chanting  the  already  perform' d,  so  full  of 
glories,  reminiscences  dear  to  the  minds  of  men.  But  my  vol 
ume  is  a  candidate  for  the  future.  "All  original  art,"  says. 
Taine,  anyhow,  "is  self-regulated,  and  no  original  art  can  be 
regulated  from  without ;  it  carries  its  own  counterpoise,  and  does 
not  receive  it  from  elsewhere — lives  on  its  own  blood  " — a  solace 
to  rny  frequent  bruises  and  sulky  vanity. 

As  the  present  is  perhaps  mainly  an  attempt  at  personal  state 
ment  or  illustration,  I  will  allow  myself  as  further  help  to  extract 
the  following  anecdote  from  a  book,  "Annals  of  Old  Painters," 
conn'd  by  me  in  youth.  Rubens,  the  Flemish  painter,  in  one 
of  his  wanderings  through  the  galleries  of  old  convents,  came 
across  a  singular  work.  After  looking  at  it  thoughtfully  for  a 


!8         A  BACKWARD   GLANCE  O'ER   TRAVELED  ROADS. 

good  while,  and  listening  to  the  criticisms  of  his  suite  of  students, 
he  said  to  the  latter,  in  answer  to  their  questions  (as  to  what 
school  the  work  implied  or  belong'd,)  "  I  do  not  believe  the  ar 
tist,  unknown  and  perhaps  no  longer  living,  who  has  given  the 
world  this  legacy,  ever  belong'd  to  any  school,  or  ever  painted 
anything  but  this  one  picture,  which  is  a  personal  affair — a  piece 
out  of  a  man's  life." 

"Leaves  of  Grass"  indeed  (I  cannot  too  often  reiterate)  has 
mainly  been  the  outcropping  of  my  own  emotional  and  other  per 
sonal  nature — an  attempt,  from  first  to  last,  to  put  a  Person,  a 
human  being  (myself,  in  the  latter  half  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen 
tury,  in  America,)  freely,  fully  and  truly  on  record.  I  could  not 
find  any  similar  personal  record  in  current  literature  that  satisfied 
me.  But  it  is  not  on  "Leaves  of  Grass"  distinctively  as  litera 
ture,  or  a  specimen  thereof,  that  I  feel  to  dwell,  or  advance 
claims.  No  one  will  get  at  my  verses  who  insists  upon  viewing  them 
as  a  literary  performance,  or  attempt  at  such  performance,  or  as 
aiming  mainly  toward  art  or  aestheticism. 

I  say  no  land  or  people  or  circumstances  ever  existed  so  need 
ing  a  race  of  singers  and  poems  differing  from  all  others,  and 
rigidly  their  own,  as  the  land  and  people  and  circumstances  of 
our  United  States  need  such  singers  and  poems  to-day,  and  for 
the  future.  Still  further,  as  long  as  the  States  continue  to  absorb 
and  be  dominated  by  the  poetry  of  the  Old  World,  and  remain 
unsupplied  with  autochthonous  song,  to  express,  vitalize  and  give 
color  to  and  define  their  material  and  political  success,  and  minis 
ter  to  them  distinctively,  so  long  will  they  stop  short  of  first-class 
Nationality  and  remain  defective. 

In  the  free  evening  of  my  day  I  give  to  you,  reader,  the  fore 
going  garrulous  talk,  thoughts,  reminiscences, 
As  idly  drifting  down  the  ebb, 
Such  ripples,  half-caught  voices,  echo  from  the  shore. 

Concluding  with  two  items  for  the  imaginative  genius  of  the 
West,  when  it  worthily  rises — First,  what  Herder  taught  to  the 
young  Goethe,  that  really  great  poetry  is  always  (like  the 
Homeric  or  Biblical  canticles)  the  result  of  a  national  spirit, 
and  not  the  privilege  of  a  polish'd  and  select  few;  Second,  that 
the  strongest  and  sweetest  songs  yet  remain  to  be  sung. 


SANDS  AT  SEVENTY. 


HANNAH  ATTA. 

My  city's  fit  and  noble  name  resumed, 
Choice  aboriginal  name,  with  marvellous  beauty,  meaning, 
A  rocky  founded  island — shores  where  ever  gayly  dash  the  coming^ 
going,  hurrying  sea  waves. 

PAUMANOK. 

Sea-beauty  !  stretch' d  and  basking  ! 

One  side  thy  inland  ocean  laving,  broad,  with  copious  commerce, 

steamers,  sails, 
And  one  the  Atlantic's  wind  caressing,  fierce  or  gentle — mighty 

hulls  dark-gliding  in  the  distance. 

Isle  of  sweet  brooks  of  drinking-water — healthy  air  and  soil ! 
Isle  of  the  salty  shore  and  breeze  and  brine  ! 

FROM  MONTAUK  POINT. 

I  stand  as  on  some  mighty  eagle's  beak, 

Eastward  the  sea  absorbing,  viewing,  (nothing  but  sea  and  sky,) 

The  tossing  waves,  the  foam,  the  ships  in  the  distance, 

The  wild  unrest,  the  snowy,  curling  caps — that   inbound  urge 

and  urge  of  waves, 
Seeking  the  shores  forever. 

TO  THOSE  WHO'VE  FAIL'D. 

To  those  who've  fail'd,  in  aspiration  vast, 

To  unnam'd  soldiers  fallen  in  front  on  the  lead, 

To  calm,  devoted  engineers — to  over-ardent  travelers — to  pilots 

on  their  ships, 
To  many  a  lofty  song  and  picture  without  recognition — I'd  rear 

a  laurel-cover'd  monument, 

High,  high  above  the  rest — To  all  cut  off  before  their  time, 
Possess' d  by  some  strange  spirit  of  fire, 
Quench'd  by  an  early  death. 

(19) 


20  SANDS  AT  SEVENTY. 

A  CAROL  CLOSING  SIXTY-NINE. 

A  carol  closing  sixty-nine — a  resume — a  repetition", 

My  lines  in  joy  and  hope  continuing  on  the  same, 

Of  ye,  O  God,  Life,  Nature,  Freedom,  Poetry; 

Of  you,  my  Land — your  rivers,  prairies,  States — you,    mottled 

Flag  I  love, 
Your  aggregate  retain' d  entire — Of  north,  south,  east  and  west, 

your  items  all ; 

Of  me  myself — the  jocund  heart  yet  beating  in  my  breast, 
The  body  wreck'd,  old,  poor  and  paralyzed — the  strange  inertia 

falling  pall-like  round  me, 

The  burning  fires  down  in  my  sluggish  blood  not  yet  extinct, 
The  undiminish'd  faith — the  groups  of  loving  friends. 

THE  BRAVEST  SOLDIERS. 

Brave,  brave  were  the  soldiers  (high  named  to-day)  who  lived 

through  the  fight ; 
But  the  bravest  press' d  to  the  front  and  fell,  unnamed,  unknown. 

A  FONT  OF  TYPE. 

This  latent  mine — these  unlaunch'd  voices — passionate  powers, 
Wrath,  argument,  or  praise,  or  comic  leer,  or  prayer  devout, 
(Not  nonpareil,  brevier,  bourgeois,  long  primer  merely,) 
These  ocean  waves  arousable  to  fury  and  to  death, 
Or  sooth'd  to  ease  and  sheeny  sun  and  sleep, 
Within  the  pallid  slivers  slumbering. 

AS  I  SIT  WRITING  HERE. 

As  I  sit  writing  here,  sick  and  grown  old, 

Not  my  least  burden  is  that  dulness  of  the  years,  querilities, 

Ungracious  glooms,  aches,  lethargy,  constipation,  whimpering 

ennui, 
May  filter  in  my  daily  songs. 

MY  CANARY  BIRD. 

Did  we  count  great,  O  soul,  to  penetrate  the  themes  of  mighty 

books, 

Absorbing  deep  and  full  from  thoughts,  plays,  speculations  ? 
But  now  from  thee  to  me,  caged  bird,  to  feel  thy  joyous  warble, 
Filling  the  air,  the  lonesome  room,  the  long  forenoon, 
Is  it  not  just  as  great,  O  soul  ? 


SANDS  AT  SEVENTY.  21 

QUERIES  TO  MY  SEVENTIETH  YEAR. 

Approaching,  nearing,  curious, 

Thou  dim,  uncertain  spectre — bringest  thou  life  or  death? 

Strength,  weakness,  blindness,  more  paralysis  and  heavier? 

Or  placid  skies  and  sun  ?     Wilt  stir  the  waters  yet  ? 

Or  haply  cut  me  short  for  good  ?     Or  leave  me  here  as  now, 

Dull,  parrot-like  and  old,  with  crack'd  voice  harping,  screeching? 

THE  WALLABOUT  MARTYRS. 

[In  Brooklyn,  in  an  old  vault,  mark'd  by  no  special  recognition,  lie 
huddled  at  this  moment  the  undoubtedly  authentic  remains  of  the  stanchest  and 
earliest  revolutionary  patriots  from  the  British  prison  ships  and  prisons  of  the 
times  of  1776-83,  in  and  around  New  York,  and  from  all  over  Long  Island; 
originally  buried — many  thousands  of  them — in  trenches  in  the  Wallabout 
sands.] 

Greater  than  memory  of  Achilles  or  Ulysses, 

More,  more  by  far  to  thee  than  tomb  of  Alexander, 

Those  cart  loads  of  old  charnel  ashes,   scales  and  splints  of 

mouldy  bones, 

Once  living  men — once  resolute  courage,  aspiration,  strength, 
The  stepping  stones  to  thee  to-day  and  here,  America. 

THE  FIRST  DANDELION. 

Simple  and  fresh  and  fair  from  winter's  close  emerging, 

As  if  no  artifice  of  fashion,  business,  politics,  had  ever  been, 

Forth  from  its  sunny  nook  of  shelter' d  grass — innocent,  golden, 

calm  as  the  dawn, 
The  spring's  first  dandelion  shows  its  trustful  face. 

AMERICA. 

Centre  of  equal  daughters,  equal  sons, 

All,  all  alike  endear'd,  grown,  ungrown,  young  or  old, 

Strong,  ample,  fair,  enduring,  capable,  rich, 

Perennial  with  the  Earth,  with  Freedom,  Law  and  Love, 

A  grand,  sane,  towering,  seated  Mother, 

Chair'd  in  the  adamant  of  Time. 

MEMORIES. 

How  sweet  the  silent  backward  tracings  ! 

The  wanderings  as  in  dreams — the  meditation  of  old  times  re 
sumed — their  loves,  joys,  persons,  voyages. 


22  SANDS  AT  SEVENTY. 

TO-DAY  AND  THEE.    - 

The  appointed  winners  in  a  long-stretch' d  game ; 

The  course  of  Time  and  nations — Egypt,  India,  Greece  and 

Rome ; 

The  past  entire,  with  all  its  heroes,  histories,  arts,  experiments, 
Its  store  of  songs,  inventions,  voyages,  teachers,  books, 
Garner' d  for  now  and  thee — To  think  of  it ! 
The  heirdom  all  converged  in  thee  ! 

AFTER  THE  DAZZLE  OF  DAY. 

After  the  dazzle  of  day  is  gone, 

Only  the  dark,  dark  night  shows  to  my  eyes  the  stars ; 

After  the  clangor  of  organ  majestic,  or  chorus,  or  perfect  band, 

Silent,  athwart  my  soul,  moves  the  symphony  true. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  BORN  FEB.  12,   1809. 

To-day,   from  each  and  all,    a  breath  of  prayer — a   pulse   of 

thought, 
To  memory  of  Him — to  birth  of  Him. 

Publish'd  Feb.  12,  1888.  » 

OUT  OF  MAY'S  SHOWS   SELECTED. 

Apple  orchards,  the  trees  all  cover'd  with  blossoms ; 
Wheat  fields  carpeted  far  and  near  in  vital  emerald  green ; 
The  eternal,  exhaustless  freshness  of  each  early  morning ; 
The  yellow,  golden,  transparent  haze  of  the  warm  afternoon  sun  ;. 
The  aspiring  lilac  bushes  with  profuse  purple  or  white  flowers. 

HALCYON  DAYS. 

Not  from  successful  love  alone, 

Nor  wealth,  nor  honor' d  middle  age,  nor  victories  of  politics  or 

war  ; 

But  as  life  wanes,  and  all  the  turbulent  passions  calm, 
As  gorgeous,  vapory,  silent  hues  cover  the  evening  sky, 
As  softness,  fulness,  rest,  suffuse  the  frame,  like  freshier,  balmier 

air, 
As  the  days  take  on  a  mellower  light,  and  the  apple  at  last  hangs 

really  finish'd  and  indolent-ripe  on  the  tree, 
Then  for  the  teeming  quietest,  happiest  days  of  all ! 
The  brooding  and  blissful  halcyon  days ! 


SANDS  AT  SEVENTY.  23 


FANCIES  AT  NAVESINK. 


THE   PILOT    IN   THE    MIST. 

Steaming  the   northern  rapids — (an  old  St.   Lawrence  reminis 
cence, 

A  sudden  memory-flash  comes  back,  I  know  not  why, 
Here  waiting  for  the  sunrise,  gazing  from  this  hill ;)  * 
Again  'tis  just  at  morning — a  heavy  haze  contends   with  day 
break, 
Again  the  trembling,  laboring  vessel  veers  me— I  press  through 

foam-dash' d  rocks  that  almost  touch  me, 
Again  I  mark  where  aft  -the  small  thin  Indian  helmsman 
Looms  in  the  mist,  with  brow  elate  and  governing  hand. 


HAD    I    THE    CHOICE. 

Had  I  the  choice  to  tally  greatest  bards, 

To  limn  their  portraits,  stately,  beautiful,  and  emulate  at  will, 

Homer  with  all  his  wars  and  warriors — Hector,  Achilles,  Ajax, 

Or  Shakspere's  woe-entangled  Hamlet,  Lear,  Othello — Tenny 
son's  fair  ladies, 

Metre  or  wit  the  best,  or  choice  conceit  to  wield  in  perfect 
rhyme,  delight  of  singers; 

These,  these,  O  sea,  all  these  I'd  gladly  barter, 

Would  you  the  undulation  of  one  wave,  its  trick  to  me  transfer,. 

Or  breathe  one  breath  of  yours  upon  my  verse, 

And  leave  its  odor  there. 

YOU    TIDES    WITH    CEASELESS   SWELL. 

You  tides  with  ceaseless  swell  !  you  power  that  does  this  work !' 
You   unseen    force,    centripetal,    centrifugal,     through    space's 

spread, 

Rapport  of  sun,  moon,  earth,  and  all  the  constellations, 
What  are  the  messages  by  you   from  distant  stars  to  us?  what 

Sirius'  ?  what  Capella's? 
What    central    heart — and   you   the    pulse — vivifies    all  ?     what 

boundless  aggregate  of  all  ? 
What  subtle  indirection  and  significance  in  you  ?  what  clue  to 

all  in  you  ?  what  fluid,  vast  identity, 
Holding  the  universe  with  all  its  parts  as  one — as  sailing  in  a  ship  > 

*  Navesink — a  sea-side  mountain,  lower  entrance  of  New  York  Bay. 


24  SANDS  AT  SEVENTY. 

LAST   OF   EBB,   AND    DAYLIGH1    WANING. 

Last  of  ebb,  and  daylight  waning, 

Scented  sea-cool  landward   making,  smells   of  sedge   and  salt 

incoming, 

With  many  a  half-caught  voice  sent  up  from  the  eddies, 
Many  a  muffled  confession — many  a  sob  and  whisper' d  word, 
As  of  speakers  far  or  hid. 

How  they  sweep  down  and  out !  how  they  mutter  ! 

Poets   unnamed — artists   greatest   of   any,    with   cherish' d   lost 

designs, 
Love's  unresponse — a  chorus  of  age's   complaints — hope's  last 

words, 
Some  suicide's  despairing  cry,  Away  to  the  boundless  waste,  and 

never  again  return. 

On  to  oblivion  then  ! 

On,  on,  and  do  your  part,  ye  burying,  ebbing  tide  ! 

On  for  your  time,  ye  furious  debouche  ! 

AND   YET    NOT   YOU   ALONE. 

And  yet  not  you  alone,  twilight  and  burying  ebb, 

Nor  you,  ye  lost  designs  alone — nor  failures,  aspirations  ; 

I  know,  divine  deceitful  ones,  your  glamour's  seeming ; 

Duly  by  you,   from  you,  the  tide  and    light   again — duly   the 

hinges  turning, 

Duly  the  needed  discord-parts  offsetting,  blending, 
Weaving  from  you,  from  Sleep,  Night,  Death  itself, 
The  rhythmus  of  Birth  eternal. 

PROUDLY   THE   FLOOD   COMES    IN. 

Proudly  the  flood  comes  in,  shouting,  foaming,  advancing, 

Long  it  holds  at  the  high,  with  bosom  broad  outswelling, 

All  throbs,  dilates — the  farms,  woods,  streets  of  cities — workmen 

at  work, 
Mainsails,  topsails,  jibs,  appear  in  the  offing — steamers'  pennants 

of  smoke — and  under  the  forenoon  sun, 
Freighted  with  human  lives,  gaily  the  outward  bound,  gaily  the 

inward  bound, 
Flaunting  from  many  a  spar  the  flag  I  love. 

BY  THAT  LONG  SCAN  OF  WAVES. 

By  that  long  scan  of  waves,  myself  call'd  back,  resumed  upon 

myself, 
In  every  crest  some  undulating  light  or  shade — some  retrospect, 


SANDS  AT  SEVENTY.  25 

Joys,  travels,  studies,  silent  panoramas — scenes  ephemeral, 

The  long  past  war,  the  battles,  hospital  sights,  the  wounded  and 

the  dead, 
Myself  through  every  by-gone  phase — my  idle  youth — old  age  at 

hand, 

My  three-score  years  of  life  summ'd  up,  and  more,  and  past, 
By  any  grand  ideal  tried,  intentionless,  the  whole  a  nothing, 
And  haply  yet  some  drop  within  God's  scheme's  ensemble — some 

wave,  or  part  of  wave, 
Like  one  of  yours,  ye  multitudinous  ocean. 

\ 

THEN    LAST   OF   ALL. 

Then  last  of  all,  caught  from  these  shores,  this  hill, 

Of  you  O  tides,  the  mystic  human  meaning : 

Only  by  law  of  you,  your  swell  and  ebb,  enclosing  me  the  same, 

The  brain  that  shapes,  the  voice  that  chants  this  song. 

ELECTION   DAY,   NOVEMBER,  1884. 

If  I  should  need  to  name,  O  Western  World,  your  powerfulest 
scene  and  show, 

'Twould  not  be  you,  Niagara — nor  you,  ye  limitless  prairies — nor 
your  huge  rifts  of  canyons,  Colorado, 

Nor  you,  Yosemite — nor  Yellowstone,  with  all  its  spasmic  geyser- 
loops  ascending  to  the  skies,  appearing  and  disappearing, 

Nor  Oregon's  white  cones — nor  Huron's  belt  of  mighty  lakes — 
nor  Mississippi's  stream  : 

— This  seething  hemisphere's  humanity,  as  now,  I'd  name — the 
still  small  voice  vibrating — America's  choosing  day, 

(The  heart  of  it  not  in  the  chosen — the  act  itself  the  main,  the 
quadriennial  choosing,) 

The  stretch  of  North  and  South  arous'd — sea-board  and  inland 
— Texas  to  Maine — the  Prairie  States — Vermont,  Virginia, 
California, 

The  final  ballot-shower  from  East  to  West — the  paradox  and  con 
flict, 

The  countless  snow-flakes  falling — (a  swordless  conflict, 

Yet  more  than  all  Rome's  wars  of  old,  or  modern  Napoleon's:) 
the  peaceful  choice  of  all, 

Or  good  or  ill  humanity — welcoming  the  darker  odds,  the  dross : 

— Foams  and  ferments  the  wine?  it  serves  to  purify — while  the 
heart  pants,  life  glows  : 

These  stormy  gusts  and  winds  waft  precious  ships, 

Swell'd  Washington's,  Jefferson's,  Lincoln's  sails. 


26  SANDS  AT  SEVENTY. 

WITH    HUSKY-HAUGHTY   LIPS,   O   SEA! 

With  husky-haughty  lips,  O  sea  ! 

Where  day  and  night  I  wend  thy  surf-beat  shore, 

Imaging  to  my  sense  thy  varied  strange  suggestions, 

(I  see  and  plainly  list  thy  talk  and  conference  here,) 

Thy  troops  of  white-maned  racers  racing  to  the  goal, 

Thy  ample,  smiling  face,  dash'd  with  the  sparkling  dimples  of  the 

sun, 

Thy  brooding  scowl  and  murk — thy  unloos'd  hurricanes, 
Thy  unsubduedness,  caprices,  wilfulness ; 
Great  as  thou  art  above  the  rest,  thy  many  tears — a  lack  from  all 

eternity  in  thy  content, 
(Naught  but  the  greatest  struggles,  wrongs,  defeats,  could  make 

thee  greatest — no  less  could  make  thee,) 
Thy  lonely  state — something  thou  ever  seek'st  and  seek'st,  yet 

never  gain'st, 
Surely  some  right  withheld — some  voice,  in  huge  monotonous 

rage,  of  freedom -lover  pent, 
Some  vast  heart,  like  a  planet's,  chain'd  and  chafing  in  those 

breakers, 

By  lengthen'd  swell,  and  spasm,  and  panting  breath, 
And  rhythmic  rasping  of  thy  sands  and  waves, 
And  serpent  hiss,  and  savage  peals  of  laughter, 
And  undertones  of  distant  lion  roar, 
(Sounding,  appealing  to  the  sky's  deaf  ear — but  now,  rapport  for 

once, 

A  phantom  in  the  night  thy  confidant  for  once,) 
The  first  and  last  confession  of  the  globe, 
Outsurging,  muttering  from  thy  soul's  abysms, 
The  tale  of  cosmic  elemental  passion, 
Thou  tellest  to  a  kindred  soul. 


DEATH  OF  GENERAL  GRANT. 

As  one  by  one  withdraw  the  lofty  actors, 

From  that  great  play  on  history's  stage  eterne, 

That  lurid,  partial  act  of  war  and  peace — of  old  and  new  con 
tending, 

Fought  out  through  wrath,  fears,  dark  dismays,  and  many  a  long 
suspense ; 

All  past — and  since,  in  countless  graves  receding,  mellowing, 

Victor's  and  vanquish'd — Lincoln's  and  Lee's — now  thou  with, 
them, 


SANDS  AT  SEVENTY.  27 

Man  of  the  mighty  days — and  equal  to  the  days ! 

Thou  from  the  prairies  ! — tangled  and  many-vein'd  and  hard  has, 

been  thy  part, 
To  admiration  has  it  been  enacted  ! 


RED  JACKET   (FROM   ALOFT.) 

[Impromptu  on  Buffalo  City's  monument  to,  and  re-burial  of  the  old  Iroquois. 
orator,  October  9,  1884.] 

Upon  this  scene,  this  show, 

Yielded  to-day  by  fashion,  learning,  wealth, 

(Nor  in  caprice  alone — some  grains  of  deepest  meaning,) 

Haply,  aloft,  (who  knows?)  from  distant  sky-clouds'  blended;' 

shapes, 

As  some  old  tree,  or  rock  or  cliff,  thrill'd  with  its  soul, 
Product  of  Nature's  sun,  stars,  earth  direct — a  towering  human 

form, 

In  hunting-shirt  of  film,  arm'd  with  the  rifle,  a  half-ironical  smile- 
curving  its  phantom  lips, 
Like  one  of  Ossian's  ghosts  looks  down. 


WASHINGTON'S   MONUMENT,   FEBRUARY,    1885. 

Ah,  not  this  marble,  dead,  and  cold : 

Far  from  its  base  and  shaft  expanding — the  round  zones  circling,, 
comprehending, 

Thou,  Washington,  art  all  the  world's,  the  continents'  entire — 
not  yours  alone,  America, 

Europe's  as  well,  in  every  part,  castle  of  lord  or  laborer's  cot, 

Or  frozen  North,  or  sultry  South — the  African's — the  Arab's  ini 
his  tent, 

Old  Asia's  there  with  venerable  smile,  seated  amid  her  ruins ; 

(Greets  the  antique  the  hero  new?  'tis  but  the  same — the  heir 
legitimate,  continued  ever, 

The  indomitable  heart  and  arm — proofs  of  the  never-broken 
line, 

Courage,  alertness,  patience,  faith,  the  same — e'en  in  defeat  de 
feated  not,  the  same :) 

Wherever  sails  a  ship,  or  house  is  built  on  land,  or  day  or  night, 

Through  teeming  cities'  streets,  indoors  or  out,  factories  or  farms,,. 

Now,  or  to  come,  or  past — where  patriot  wills  existed  or  exist, 

Wherever  Freedom,  pois'd  by  Toleration,  sway'd  by  Law, 

Stands  or  is  rising  thy  true  monument. 


28  SANDS  AT  SEVENTY. 

OF   THAT   BLITHE   THROAT  OF  THINE. 

[More  than  eighty-three  degrees  north — about  a  good  day's  steaming  dis 
tance  to  the  Pole  by  one  of  our  fast  oceaners  in  clear  water — Greely  the  ex 
plorer  heard  the  song  of  a  single  snow-bird  merrily  sounding  over  the  desola 
tion.] 

Of  that  blithe  throat  of  thine  from  arctic  bleak  and  blank, 

I'll  mind  the  lesson,  solitary  bird — let  me  too  welcome  chilling 

drifts, 
E'en  the  profoundest  chill,  as  now — a  torpid  pulse,  a  brain  un- 

nerv'd, 

Old  age  land-lock'd  within  its  winter  bay — (cold,  cold,  O  cold  !) 
These  snowy  hairs,  my  feeble  arm,  my  frozen  feet, 
For  them  thy  faith,  thy  rule  I  take,  and  grave  it  to  the  last ; 
Not  summer's  zones  alone — not  chants  of  youth,  or  south's  warm 

tides  alone, 
But  held  by  sluggish  floes,  pack'd  in  the  northern  ice,  the  cumulus 

of  years, 
These  with  gay  heart  I  also  sing. 

BROADWAY. 

What  hurrying  human  tides,  or  day  or  night ! 

What  passions,  winnings,  losses,  ardors,  swim  thy  waters ! 

What  whirls  of  evil,  bliss  and  sorrow,  stem  thee  ! 

What  curious  questioning  glances — glints  of  love  ! 

Leer,  envy,  scorn,  contempt,  hope,  aspiration  ! 

Thou  portal — thou  arena — thou  of  the  myriad  long-drawn  lines 

and  groups ! 
(Could  but  thy  flagstones,  curbs,  facades,  tell  their  inimitable 

tales ; 

Thy  windows  rich,  and  huge  hotels — thy  side-walks  wide ;) 
Thou  of  the  endless  sliding,  mincing,  shuffling  feet ! 
Thou,  like  the  parti-colored  world  itself — like  infinite,  teeming, 

mocking  life  ! 
Thou  visor' d,  vast,  unspeakable  show  and  lesson  ! 

TO  GET  THE  FINAL  LILT  OF  SONGS. 

To  get  the  final  lilt  of  songs, 

To  penetrate  the  inmost  lore  of  poets — to  know  the  mighty  ones, 
Job,  Homer,  Eschylus,  Dante,  Shakspere,  Tennyson,  Emerson ; 
To  diagnose  the  shifting-delicate  tints  of  love  and  pride  and 

doubt — to  truly  understand, 

To  encompass  these,  the  last  keen  faculty  and  entrance-price, 
Old  age,  and  what  it  brings  from  all  its  past  experiences. 


SANDS  AT  SEVENTY.  29 

OLD   SALT   KOSSABONE. 

Far  back,  related  on  my  mother's  side, 

Old  Salt  Kossabone,  I'll  tell  you  how  he  died : 

(Had  been  a  sailor  all  his  life — was  nearly  90 — lived  with  his 
married  grandchild,  Jenny ; 

House  on  a  hill,  with  view  of  bay  at  hand,  and  distant  cape,  and 
stretch  to  open  sea ;) 

The  last  of  afternoons,  the  evening  hours,  for  many  a  year  his 
regular  custom, 

In  his  great  arm  chair  by  the  window  seated, 

(Sometimes,  indeed,  through  half  the  day,) 

Watching  the  coming,  going  of  the  vessels,  he  mutters  to  himself 
— And  now  the  close  of  all : 

One  struggling  outbound  brig,  one  day,  baffled  for  long — cross- 
tides  and  much  wrong  going, 

At  last  at  nightfall  strikes  the  breeze  aright,  her  whole  luck  veer 
ing. 

And  swiftly  bending  round  the  cape,  the  darkness  proudly  enter 
ing,  cleaving,  as  he  watches, 

"  She's  free — she's  on  her  destination  " — these  the  last  words — 
when  Jenny  came,  he  sat  there  dead, 

Dutch  Kossabone,  Old  Salt,  related  on  my  mother's  side,  far 
back. 

THE  DEAD  TENOR. 
As  down  the  stage  again, 

With  Spanish  hat  and  plumes,  and  gait  inimitable, 
Back  from  the  fading  lessons  of  the  past,  I'd  call,  I'd  tell  and 

own, 
How  much  from  thee  !    the  revelation  of  the  singing  voice  from 

thee! 

(So  firm — so  liquid-soft — again  that  tremulous,  manly  timbre  ! 
The  perfect  singing  voice — deepest  of  all  to  me  the  lesson — trial 

and  test  of  all :) 
How  through  those  strains  distill 'd — how  the  rapt  ears,  the  soul 

of  me,  absorbing 
Fernando 's   heart,  Maurices   passionate   call,  Ernani's,  sweet 

Gennaro 's, 

I  fold  thenceforth,  or  seek  to  fold,  within  my  chants  transmuting, 
Freedom's  and  Love's  and  Faith's  unloos'd  cantabile, 
(As  perfume's,  color's,  sunlight's  correlation  :) 
From  these,  for  these,  with  these,  a  hurried  line,  dead  tenor, 
A  wafted  autumn  leaf,  dropt  in  the  closing  grave,  the  shovel 'd 

earth, 
To  memory  of  thee. 


^O  SANDS  AT  SEVENTY. 

CONTINUITIES. 
[From  a  talk  I  had  lately  with  a  German  spiritualist.] 

•Nothing  is  ever  really  lost,  or  can  be  lost, 
No  birth,  identity,  form — no  object  of  the  worJd, 
Nor  life,  nor  force,  nor  any  visible  thing ; 
Appearance  must  not  foil,  nor  shifted  sphere  confuse  thy  brain. 
Ample  are  time  and  space — ample  the  fields  of  Nature. 
The  body,  sluggish,  aged,  cold — the  embers  left  from  earlier 

fires, 

The  light  in  the  eye  grown  dim,  shall  duly  flame  again ; 
The  sun  now  low  in  the  west  rises  for  mornings  and  for  noons 

continual ; 

To  frozen  clods  ever  the  spring's  invisible  law  returns, 
With  grass  and  flowers  and  summer  fruits  and  corn. 

YONNONDIO. 

[The  sense  of  the  word  is  lament  for  the  aborigines.     It  is  an  Iroquois 
Yterm;  and  has  been  used  for  a  personal  name.] 

A  song,  a  poem  of  itself — the  word  itself  a  dirge, 
Amid  the  wilds,  the  rocks,  the  storm  and  wintry  night, 
To  me  such  misty,  strange  tableaux  the  syllables  calling  up ; 
Yonnondio — I  see,  far  in  the  west  or  north,  a  limitless  ravine, 

with  plains  and  mountains  dark, 

I  see  swarms  of  stalwart  chieftains,  medicine-men,  and  warriors, 
-As  flitting  by  like  clouds  of  ghosts,  they  pass  and  are  gone  in  the 

twilight, 

(Race  of  the  woods,  the  landscapes  free,  and  the  falls ! 
No  picture,  poem,  statement,  passing  them  to  the  future:) 
Yonnondio  !  Yonnondio  ! — unlimn'd  they  disappear; 
To-day  gives  place,  and  fades — the  cities,  farms,  factories  fade ; 
A  muffled  sonorous  sound,  a  wailing  word  is  borne  through  the 

air  for  a  moment, 
Then  blank  and  gone  and  still,  and  utterly  lost. 

LIFE. 

Ever  the  undiscouraged,  resolute,  struggling  soul  of  man  ; 
(Have  former  armies  fail'd?  then  we  send  fresh  armies — and 

fresh  again ;) 

Ever  the  grappled  mystery  of  all  earth's  ages  old  or  new ; 
Ever  the  eager  eyes,  hurrahs,  the  welcome-clapping  hands,  the 

loud  applause ; 

Ever  the  soul  dissatisfied,  curious,  unconvinced  at  last; 
'Struggling  to-day  the  same — battling  the  same. 


SANDS  AT  SEVENTY.  3! 

"GOING    SOMEWHERE." 

My  science-friend,  my  noblest  woman-friend, 

(Now  buried  in  an  English  grave — and  this  a  memory-leaf  for 

her  dear  sake,) 
Ended  our  talk — "The  sum,  concluding  all  we  know  of  old  or 

modern  learning,  intuitions  deep, 
"Of  all  Geologies — Histories — of  all  Astronomy — of  Evolution, 

Metaphysics  all, 
"  Is,   that  we  all  are  onward,  onward,  speeding  slowly,  surely 

bettering, 
•"  Life,  life  an  endless  march,  an  endless  army,  (no  halt,  but  it  is 

duly  over,) 

"  The  world,  the  race,  the  soul — in  space  and  time  the  universes, 
•"  All  bound  as  is  befitting  each — all  surely  going  somewhere." 

From  the  1867  edition  L.  of  G. 

SMALL  THE  THEME  OF  MY  CHANT. 

Small  the  theme  of  my  Chant,  yet  the  greatest — namely,  One's- 
Self — a  simple,  separate  person.  That,  for  the  use  of  the 
New  World,  I  sing. 

Man's  physiology  complete,  from  top  to  toe,  I  sing.  Not  physi 
ognomy  alone,  nor  brain  alone,  is  worthy  for  the  Muse ; — I 
say  the  Form  complete  is  worthier  far.  The  Female  equally 
with  the  Male,  I  sing. 

Nor  cease  at  the  theme  of  One's-Self.  I  speak  the  word  of  the 
modern,  the  word  En-Masse. 

My  Days  I  sing,  and  the  Lands — with  interstice  I  knew  of  hap 
less  War. 

(O  friend,  whoe'er  you  are,  at  last  arriving  hither  to  commence, 
I  feel  through  every  leaf  the  pressure  of  your  hand,  which  I 
return. 

And  thus  upon  our  journey,  footing  the  road,  and  more  than 
once,  and  link'd  together  let  us  go.) 

TRUE   CONQUERORS. 

Old  farmers,  travelers,  workmen    (no  matter  how  crippled  or 

bent,) 

Old  sailors,  out  of  many  a  perilous  voyage,  storm  and  wreck, 
Old  soldiers  from  campaigns,  with  all  their  wounds,  defeats  and 

scars ; 

Enough  that  they've  survived  at  all — long  life's  unflinching  ones  ! 
Forth  from  their  struggles,  trials,  fights,  to  have  emerged  at  all 

— in  that  alone, 
True  conquerors  o'er  all  the  rest. 


32  SANDS  AT  SEVENTY. 

THE  UNITED  STATES  TO   OLD  WORLD  CRITICS. 

Here  first  the  duties  of  to-day,  the  lessons  of  the  concrete, 
Wealth,  order,  travel,  shelter,  products,  plenty; 
As  of  the  building  of  some  varied,  vast,  perpetual  edifice, 
Whence  to  arise  inevitable  in  time,  the  towering  roofs,  the  lamps, 
The  solid-planted  spires  tall  shooting  to  the  stars. 

THE   CALMING  THOUGHT  OF  ALL. 

That  coursing  on,  whate'er  men's  speculations, 

Amid  the  changing  schools,  theologies,  philosophies, 

Amid  the  bawling  presentations  new  and  old, 

The  round  earth's  silent  vital  laws,  facts,  modes  continue. 

THANKS  IN  OLD  AGE. 

Thanks  in  old  age — thanks  ere  I  go, 

For  health,  the  midday  sun,  the  impalpable  air — for  life,  mere 
life, 

For  precious  ever-lingering  memories,  (of  you  my  mother  dear 
— you,  father — you,  brothers,  sisters,  friends,) 

For  all  my  days — not  those  of  peace  alone — the  days  of  war  the 
same, 

For  gentle  words,  caresses,  gifts  from  foreign  lands, 

For  shelter,  wine  and  meat — for  sweet  appreciation, 

(You  distant,  dim  unknown — or  young  or  old — countless,  un 
specified,  readers  belov'd, 

We  never  met,  and  ne'er  shall  meet — and  yet  our  souls  embrace, 
long,  close  and  long ;) 

For  beings,  groups,  love,  deeds,  words,  books — for  colors,  forms, 

For  all  the  brave  strong  men — devoted,  hardy  men — who've  for 
ward  sprung  in  freedom's  help,  all  years,  all  lands, 

For  braver,  stronger,  more  devoted  men — (a  special  laurel  ere  I 
go,  to  life's  war's  chosen  ones, 

The  cannoneers  of  song  and  thought — the  great  artillerists — the 
foremost  leaders,  captains  of  the  soul :) 

As  soldier  from  an  ended  war  return'd — As  traveler  out  of 
myriads,  to  the  long  procession  retrospective, 

Thanks — joyful  thanks! — a  soldier's,  traveler's  thanks. 

LIFE  AND  DEATH. 

The  two  old,  simple  problems  ever  intertwined, 
Close  home,  elusive,  present,  baffled,  grappled. 
By  each  successive  age  insoluble,  pass'd  on, 
To  ours  to-day — and  we  pass  on  the  same. 


SANDS  AT  SEVENTY.  33 

THE  VOICE   OF  THE   RAIN. 

And  who  art  them  ?  said  I  to  the  soft-falling  shower, 

Which,  strange  to  tell,  gave  me  an  answer,  as  here  translated: 

I  am  the  Poem  of  Earth,  said  the  voice  of  the  rain, 

Eternal  I  rise  impalpable  out  of  the  land  and  the  bottomless  sea, 

Upward  to  heaven,  whence,  vaguely  form'd,  altogether  changed, 

and  yet  the  same, 

I  descend  to  lave  the  drouths,  atomies,  dust-layers  of  the  globe, 
And  all  that  in  them  without  me  were  seeds  only,  latent,  unborn  ; 
And   forever,  by  day  and  night,  I  give   back   life   to   my  own 

origin,  and  make  pure  and  beautify  it ; 

(For  song,  issuing  from  its  birth-place,  after  fulfilment,  wander 
ing, 
Reck'd  or  unreck'd,  duly  with  love  returns.) 


SOON  SHALL  THE  WINTER'S  FOIL  BE  HERE. 

Soon  shall  the  winter's  foil  be  here; 

Soon  shall  these  icy  ligatures  unbind  and  melt — A  little  while, 

And  air,  soil,  wave,  suffused  shall  be  in  softness,  bloom  and 
growth — a  thousand  forms  shall  rise 

From  these  dead  clods  and  chills  as  from  low  burial  graves. 

Thine  eyes,  ears — all  thy  best  attributes — all  that  takes  cognizance 
of  natural  beauty, 

Shall  wake  and  fill.  Thou  shalt  perceive  the  simple  shows,  the 
delicate  miracles  of  earth, 

Dandelions,  clover,  the  emerald  grass,  the  early  scents  and  flow 
ers, 

The  arbutus  under  foot,  the  willow's  yellow-green,  the  blossom 
ing  plum  and  cherry; 

With  these  the  robin,  lark  and  thrush,  singing  their  songs — the 
flitting  bluebird ; 

For  such  the  scenes  the  annual  play  brings  on. 

WHILE  NOT  THE  PAST  FORGETTING. 

While  not  the  past  forgetting, 

To-day,  at  least,  contention  sunk  entire — peace,  brotherhood  up 
risen  ; 

For  sign  reciprocal  our  Northern,  Southern  hands, 
Lay  on  the  graves  of  all  dead  soldiers,  North  or  South, 
(Nor  for  the  past  alone — for  meanings  to  the  future,) 
Wreaths  of  roses  and  branches  of  palm. 
Publish'd  May  30,  1888. 
3 


34  SANDS  AT  SEVENTY. 

THE   DYING   VETERAN. 
[A  Long  Island  incident — early  part  of  the  present  century.] 

Amid  these  days  of  order,  ease,  prosperity, 
Amid  the  current  songs  of  beauty,  peace,  decorum, 
I  cast  a  reminiscence — (likely  'twill  offend  you, 
I  heard  it  in  my  boyhood  ;) — More  than  a  generation  since, 
A  queer  old  savage  man,  a  fighter  under  Washington  himself, 
(Large,  brave,  cleanly,  hot-blooded,  no  talker,  rather  spiritual 
istic, 
Had  fought  in  the  ranks — fought  well — had  been  all  through  the 

Revolutionary  war,) 
Lay  dying — sons,  daughters,  church-deacons,  lovingly  tending 

him, 

Sharping  their  sense,  their  ears,   towards  his  murmuring,  half- 
caught  words : 

"  Let  me  return  again  to  my  war-days, 
To  the  sights  and  scenes — to  forming  the  line  of  battle, 
To  the  scouts  ahead  reconnoitering, 
To  the  cannons,  the  grim  artillery, 
To  the  galloping  aids,  carrying  orders, 
To  the  wounded,  the  fallen,  the  heat,  the  suspense, 
The  perfume  strong,  the  smoke,  the  deafening  noise ; 
Away  with  your  life  of  peace  ! — your  joys  of  peace  ! 
Give  me  my  old  wild  battle-life  again  !  " 


STRONGER   LESSONS. 

Have  you  learn'd  lessons  only  of  those  who  admired  you,  and 
were  tender  with  you,  and  stood  aside  for  you  ? 

Have  you  not  learn'd  great  lessons  from  those  who  reject  you,, 
and  brace  themselves  against  you  ?  or  who  treat  you  with 
contempt,  or  dispute  the  passage  with  you  ? 


A  PRAIRIE  SUNSET. 

Shot  gold,  maroon  and  violet,  dazzling  silver,  emerald,  fawn, 

The  earth's  whole  amplitude  and  Nature's  multiform  power  con- 
sign'd  for  once  to  colors; 

The  light,  the  general  air  possess' d  by  them — colors  till  now  un 
known, 

No  limit,  confine — not  the  Western  sky  alone — the  high  meri 
dian — 'North,  South,  all, 

Pure  luminous  color  fighting  the  silent  shadows  to  the  last. 


SANDS  AT  SEVENTH.  35 

TWENTY  YEARS. 

Down  on  the  ancient  wharf,  the  sand,  I  sit,  with  a  new-comer 

chatting : 

He  shipp'd  as  green-hand  boy,  and  sail'd  away,  (took  some  sud 
den,  vehement  notion ;) 

Since,  twenty  years  and  more  have  circled  round  and  round, 
While  he  the  globe  was  circling  round  and  round, — and  now 

returns : 
How   changed   the   place — all   the   old   land-marks   gone — the 

parents  dead ; 
(Yes,  he  comes  back  to  lay  in  port  for  good — to  settle — has  a  well- 

fill'd  purse — no  spot  will  do  but  this ;) 
The  little  boat  that  sculPd  him  from  the   sloop,  now  held  in 

leash  I  see, 
I  hear  the  slapping  waves,  the  restless  keel,  the  rocking  in  the 

sand, 
I  see  the  sailor  kit,  the  canvas  bag,  the  great  box  bound  with 

brass, 
I  scan  the  face  all  berry-brown  and  bearded — the  stout-strong 

frame, 

Dress'd  in  its  russet  suit  of  good  Scotch  cloth : 
(Then  what  the  told-out  story  of  those  twenty  years  ?  What  of 

the  future?) 

ORANGE  BUDS   BY  MAIL  FROM  FLORIDA. 

[Voltaire  closed  a  famous  argument  by  claiming  that  a  ship  of  war  and  the 
grand  opera  were  proofs  enough  of  civilization's  and  France's  progress,  in 
his  day.] 

A  lesser  proof  than  old  Voltaire's,  yet  greater, 

Proof   of    this   present    time,    and    thee,    thy   broad    expanse, 

America, 

To  my  plain  Northern  hut,  in  outside  clouds  and  snow, 
Brought  safely  for  a  thousand  miles  o'er  land  and  tide, 
Some  three  days  since  on  their  own  soil  live-sprouting, 
Now  here  their  sweetness  through  my  room  unfolding, 
A  bunch  of  orange  buds  by  mail  from  Florida. 

TWILIGHT. 

The  soft  voluptuous  opiate  shades, 

The  sun  just  gone,  the  eager  light  dispell'd — (I  too  will  soon  be 

gone.,  dispell'd,) 
A  haze — nirwana — rest  and  night — oblivion. 


3  6  SANDS  AT  SEVENTY. 

YOU  LINGERING  SPARSE  LEAVES  OF  ME. 

You  lingering  sparse  leaves  of  me  on  winter-nearing  boughs, 

And  I  some  well-shorn  tree  of  field  or  orchard-row; 

You  tokens  diminute  and  lorn — (not  now  the  flush  of  May,  or 

July  clover-bloom — no  grain  of  August  now ;) 
You  pallid  banner-staves — you   pennants   valueless — you   over- 

stay'd  of  time, 

Yet  my  soul-dearest  leaves  confirming  all  the  rest, 
The  faithfulest — hardiest — last. 


NOT  MEAGRE,  LATENT  BOUGHS  ALONE. 

Not  meagre,  latent  boughs  alone,   O  songs!  (scaly  and  bare, 

like  eagles'  talons,) 
But  haply  for  some  sunny  day  (who  knows  ?)  some  future  spring, 

some  summer — bursting  forth, 

To  verdant  leaves,  or  sheltering  shade — to  nourishing  fruit, 
Apples  and  grapes — the  stalwart  limbs  of  trees  emerging — the 

fresh,  free,  open  air, 
And  love  and  faith,  like  scented  roses  blooming. 


THE  DEAD   EMPEROR. 

To-day,  with  bending  head  and  eyes,  thou,  too,  Columbia, 
Less   for   the   mighty  crown   laid   low  in  sorrow — less  for  the 

Emperor, 
Thy  true  condolence  breathest,  sendest  out  o'er  many  a  salt  sea 

mile, 

Mourning  a  good  old  man — a  faithful  shepherd,  patriot. 
Publish'd  March  10,  1888. 


AS  THE  GREEK'S  SIGNAL  FLAME. 
[For  Whittier's  eightieth  birthday,  December  17,  1887.] 

As  the  Greek's  signal  flame,  by  antique  records  told, 
Rose  from  the  hill-top,  like  applause  and  glory, 
Welcoming  in  fame  some  special  veteran,  hero, 
With  rosy  tinge  reddening  the  land  he'd  served, 
So  I  aloft  from  Mannahatta's  ship- fringed  shore, 
Lift  high  a  kindled  brand  for  thee,  Old  Poet. 


SANDS  AT  SEVENTY.  jy 

THE   DISMANTLED   SHIP. 

In  some  unused  lagoon,  some  nameless  bay, 

On  sluggish,  lonesome  waters,  anchor'd  near  the  shore, 

An  old,  dismasted,  gray  and  batter'd  ship,  disabled,  done, 

After  free  voyages  to  all  the  seas  of  earth,  haul'd  up  at  last  and 

hawser' d  tight, 
Lies  rusting,  mouldering. 

NOW   PRECEDENT   SONGS,   FAREWELL. 

Now  precedent  songs,  farewell — by  every  name  farewell, 
(Trains   of  a  staggering   line   in    many  a  strange   procession, 

waggons, 
From  ups  and  downs — with  intervals — from  elder  years,  mid-age, 

or  youth,) 

"  In  Cabin'd  Ships,"  or  "  Thee  Old  Cause"  or  "Poets  to  Come" 
Or  "  Paumanok,"  "  Song  of  Myself,"  "  Calamus,"  or  "Adam," 
Or  "Beat!  Beat!  Drums!"  or  "To  the  Leaven* d  Soil  they 

Trod," 
Or  "  Captain  !  My  Captain  !  "  "  Kosmos,"  "  Quicksand  Years," 

or  "Thoughts," 
"Thou  Mother  with  thy  Equal  Brood,"  and  many,  many  more 

unspecified, 
From  fibre  heart  of  mine — from  throat  and  tongue — (My  life's 

hot  pulsing  blood, 
The  personal  urge  and  form  for  me — not  merely  paper,  automatic 

type  and  ink,) 
Each  song  of  mine — each  utterance  in  the  past — having  its  long,, 

long  history, 

Of  life  or  death,  or  soldier's  wound,  of  country's  loss  or  safety, 
(O  heaven  !  what  flash  and  started  endless  train  of  all !  com 
pared  indeed  to  that ! 
What  wretched  shred  e'en  at  the  best  of  all !) 

AN   EVENING  LULL. 

After  a  week  of  physical  anguish, 

Unrest    and  pain,  and  feverish  heat, 

Toward  the  ending  day  a  calm  and  lull  comes  on, 

Three  hours  of  peace  and  soothing  rest  of  brain.* 

*  The  two  songs  on  this  page  are  eked  out  during  an  afternoon,  June,  1888, 
in  my  seventieth  year,  at  a  critical  spell  of  illness.  Of  course  no  reader  and 
probably  no  human  being  at  any  time  will  ever  have  such  phases  of  emotional 
and  solemn  action  as  these  involve  to  me.  I  feel  in  them  an  end  and  close 
of  all. 


38  SANDS  AT  SEVENTY. 

AFTER  THE  SUPPER  AND  TALK. 

After  the  supper  and  talk — after  the  day  is  done, 

As  a  friend  from  friends  his  final  withdrawal  prolonging, 

Good-bye  and  Good-bye  with  emotional  lips  repeating, 

(So  hard  for  his  hand  to  release  those  hands — no  more  will  they 

meet, 

No  more  for  communion  of  sorrow  and  joy,  of  old  and  young, 
A  far-stretching  journey  awaits  him,  to  return  no  more,) 
Shunning,  postponing  severance — seeking  to  ward  off  the  last 

word  ever  so  little, 

E'en  at  the  exit-door  turning — charges  superfluous  calling  back- 
e'en  as  he  descends  the  steps, 
Something  to  eke  out  a  minute  additional — shadows  of  nightfall 

deepening, 
Farewells,  messages  lessening — dimmer   the   forthgoer's  visage 

and  form, 

Soon  to  be  lost  for  aye  in  the  darkness — loth,  O  so  loth  to  de 
part ! 
Garrulous  to  the  very  last. 


OUR  EMINENT  VISITORS 

PAST,    PRESENT    AND    FUTURE. 

WELCOME  to  them  each  and  all !  They  do  good — the  deepest, 
widest,  most  needed  good — though  quite  certainly  not  in  the 
ways  attempted — which  have,  at  times,  something  irresistibly 
comic.  What  can  be  more  farcical,  for  instance,  than  the  sight 
of  a  worthy  gentleman  coming  three  or  four  thousand  miles 
through  wet  and  wind  to  speak  complacently  and  at  great  length 
on  matters  of  which  he  both  entirely  mistakes  or  knows  nothing 
— before  crowds  of  auditors  equally  complacent,  and  equally 
at  fault? 

Yet  welcome  and  thanks,  we  say,  to  those  visitors  we  have, 
and  have  had,  from  abroad  among  us — and  may  the  procession 
continue  !  We  have  had  Dickens  and  Thackeray,  Froude,  Her 
bert  Spencer,  Oscar  Wilde,  Lord  Coleridge — soldiers,  savants, 
poets — and  now  Matthew  Arnold  and  Irving  the  actor.  Some 
have  come  to  make  money — some  for  a  "  good  time  " — some  to 
help  us  along  and  give  us  advice — and  some  undoubtedly  to  in 
vestigate,  bona  fide,  this  great  problem,  democratic  America, 
looming  upon  the  world  with  such  cumulative  power  through  a 
hundred  years,  now  with  the  evident  intention  (since  the  Seces 
sion  War)  to  stay,  and  take  a  leading  hand,  for  many  a  century 
to  come,  in  civilization's  and  humanity's  eternal  game.  But 
alas !  that  very  investigation — the  method  of  that  investigation 
— is  where  the  deficit  most  surely  and  helplessly  comes  in.  Let 
not  Lord  Coleridge  and  Mr.  Arnold  (to  say  nothing  of  the 
illustrious  actor)  imagine  that  when  they  have  met  and  survey 'd 
the  etiquettical  gatherings  of  our  wealthy,  distinguish'd  and 
sure-to-be-put-forward-on-such-occasions  citizens  (New  York, 
Boston,  Philadelphia,  &c.,  have  certain  stereotyped  strings  of 
them,  continually  lined  and  paraded  like  the  lists  of  dishes  at  hotel 
tables — you  are  sure  to  get  the  same  over  and  over  again — it  is 
very  amusing) — and  the  bowing  and  introducing,  the  receptions 
at  the  swell  clubs,  the  eating  and  drinking  and  praising  and 
praising  back — and  the  next  day  riding  about  Central  Park,  or 
doing  the  "  Public  Institutions" — and  so  passing  through,  one 
after  another,  the  full-dress  coteries  of  the  Atlantic  cities,  all 

(39) 


40  OUR  EMINENT  VISITORS. 

grammatical  and  cultured  and  correct,  with  the  toned-down 
manners  of  the  gentlemen,  and  the  kid-gloves,  and  luncheons 
and  finger-glasses — Let  not  our  eminent  visitors,  we  say,  suppose 
that,  by  means  of  these  experiences,  they  have  "seen  America," 
or  captur'd  any  distinctive  clew  or  purport  thereof.  Not  a  bit 
of  it.  Of  the  pulse-beats  that  lie  within  and  vitalize  this  Com 
monweal  to-day — of  the  hard-pan  purports  and  idiosyncrasies 
pursued  faithfully  and  triumphantly  by  its  bulk  of  men  North 
and  South,  generation  after  generation,  superficially  unconscious 
of  their  own  aims,  yet  none  the  less  pressing  onward  with  death 
less  intuition — those  coteries  do  not  furnish  the  faintest  scintilla. 
In  the  Old  World  the  best  flavor  and  significance  of  a  race  may 
possibly  need  to  be  look'd  for  in  its  "upper  classes,"  its  gen 
tries,  its  court,  its  etat  major.  In  the  United  States  the  rule  is 
revers'd.  Besides  (and  a  point,  this,  perhaps  deepest  of  all,) 
the  special  marks  of  our  grouping  and  design  are  not  going  to 
be  understood  in  a  hurry.  The  lesson  and  scanning  right  on  the 
ground  are  difficult ;  I  was  going  to  say  they  are  impossible  to 
foreigners — but  I  have  occasionally  found  the  clearest  apprecia 
tion  of  all,  coming  from  far-off  quarters.  Surely  nothing  could 
be  more  apt,  not  only  for  our  eminent  visitors  present  and  to 
come,  but  for  home  study,  than  the  following  editorial  criticism 
of  the  London  Times  on  Mr.  Froude's  visit  and  lectures  here  a 
few  years  ago,  and  the  culminating  dinner  given  at  Delmonico's, 
with  its  brilliant  array  of  guests : 

"  We  read  the  list,"  says  the  Times,  "  of  those  who  assembled  to  do  honor 
to  Mr.  Froude :  there  were  Mr.  Emerson,  Mr.  Beecher,  Mr.  Curtis,  Mr. 
Bryant ;  we  add  the  names  of  those  who  sent  letters  of  regret  that  they  could 
not  attend  in  person — Mr.  Longfellow,  Mr.  Whittier.  They  are  names  which 
are  well  known — almost  as  well  known  and  as  much  honor'd  in  England  as 
in  America;  and  yet  what  must  we  say  in  the  end?  The  American  people 
outside  this  assemblage  of  writers  is  something  vaster  and  greater  than  they, 
singly  or  together,  can  comprehend.  It  cannot  be  said  of  any  or  all  of  them 
that  they  can  speak  for  their  nation.  We  who  look -on  at  this  distance  are 
able  perhaps  on  that  account  to  see  the  more  clearly  that  there  are  qualities 
of  the  American  people  which  find  no  representation,  no  voice,  among  these 
their  spokesmen.  And  what  is  true  of  them  is  true  of  the  English  class  of 
whom  Mr.  Froude  may  be  said  to  be  the  ambassador.  Mr.  Froude  is  master 
of  a  charming  style.  He  has  the  gift  of  grace  and  the  gift  of  sympathy. 
Taking  any  single  character  as  the  subject  of  his  study,  he  may  succeed  after 
a  very  short  time  in  so  comprehending  its  workings  as  to  be  able  to  present  a 
living  figure  to  the  intelligence  and  memory  of  his  readers.  But  the  move 
ments  of  a  nation,  the  -voiceless  purpose  of  a  people  which  cannot  put  its  own 
thoughts  into  words,  yet  acts  upon  them  in  each  successive  generation — these 
things  do  not  lie  within  his  grasp.  .  .  .  The  functions  of  literature  such  as 
he  represents  are  limited  in  their  action  ;  the  influence  he  can  wield  is  artifi 
cial  and  restricted,  and,  while  he  and  his  hearers  please  and  are  pleas' d  with 
pleasant  periods,  his  great  mass  of  national  life  will  flow  around  them  un- 


OUR  EMINENT   VISITORS.  4r 

mov'd  in  its  tides  by  action  as  powerless  as  that  of  the  dwellers  by  the  shore 
to  direct  the  currents  of  the  ocean." 

A  thought,  here,  that  needs  to  be  echoed,  expanded,  per 
manently  treasur'd  by  our  literary  classes  and  educators.  (The 
gestation,  the  youth,  the  knitting  preparations,  are  now  over,  and 
it  is  full  time  for  definite  purpose,  result.)  How  few  think  of  it, 
though  it  is  the  impetus  and  background  of  our  whole  Nation 
ality  and  popular  life.  In  the  present  brief  memorandum  I  very 
likely  for  the  first  time  awake  "the  intelligent  reader"  to  the 
idea  and  inquiry  whether  there  isn't  such  a  thing  as  the  dis 
tinctive  genius  of  our  democratic  New  World,  universal,  imma 
nent,  bringing  to  a  head  the  best  experience  of  the  past — not 
specially  literary  or  intellectual — not  merely  "good,"  (in  the 
Sunday  School  and  Temperance  Society  sense,) — some  invisible 
spine  and  great  sympathetic  to  these  States,  resident  only  in  the 
average  people,  in  their  practical  life,  in  their  physiology,  in 
their  emotions,  in  their  nebulous  yet  fiery  patriotism,  in  the 
armies  (both  sides)  through  the  whole  Secession  War — an 
identity  and  character  which  indeed  so  far  "finds  no  voice 
among  their  spokesmen." 

To  my  mind  America,  vast  and  fruitful  as  it  appears  to-day,  is 
even  yet,  for  its  most  important  results,  entirely  in  the  tentative 
state  ;  its  very  formation-stir  and  whirling  trials  and  essays  more 
splendid  and  picturesque,  to  my  thinking,  than  the  accom- 
plish'd  growths  and  shows  of  other  lands,  through  European 
history,  or  Greece,  or  all  the  past.  Surely  a  New  World  litera 
ture,  worthy  the  name,  is  not  to  be,  if  it  ever  comes,  some 
fiction,  or  fancy,  or  bit  of  sentimentalism  or  polish'd  work 
merely  by  itself,  or  in  abstraction.  So  long  as  such  literature 
is  no  born  branch  and  offshoot  of  the  Nationality,  rooted  and 
grown  from  its  roots,  and  fibred  with  its  fibre,  it  can  never 
answer  any  deep  call  or  perennial  need.  Perhaps  the  untaught 
Republic  is  wiser  than  its  teachers.  The  best  literature  is  always 
a  result  of  something  far  greater  than  itself — not  the  hero,  but 
the  portrait  of  the  hero.  Before  there  can  be  recorded  history 
or  poem  there  must  be  the  transaction.  Beyond  the  old  master 
pieces,  the  Iliad,  the  interminable  Hindu  epics,  the  Greek 
tragedies,  even  the  Bible  itself,  range  the  immense  facts  of  what 
must  have  preceded  them,  their  sine  qua  non — the  veritable 
poems  and  masterpieces,  of  which,  grand  as  they  are,  the  word- 
statements  are  but  shreds  and  cartoons. 

For  to-day  and  the  States,  I  think  the  vividest,  rapidest,  most 
stupendous  processes  ever  known,  ever  perform'd  by  man  or 
nation,  on  the  largest  scales  and  in  countless  varieties,  are  now 


42  OUR  EMINENT   VISITORS. 

and  here  presented.  Not  as  our  poets  and  preachers  are  always 
conventionally  putting  it — but  quite  different.  Some  colossal 
foundry,  the  flaming  of  the  fire,  the  melted  metal,  the  pounding 
trip-hammers,  the  surging  crowds  of  workmen  shifting  from  point 
to  point,  the  murky  shadows,  the  rolling  haze,  the  discord,  the 
•crudeness,  the  deafening  din,  the  disorder,  the  dross  and  clouds 
of  dust,  the  waste  and  extravagance  of  material,  the  shafts  of 
darted  sunshine  through  the  vast  open  roof-scuttles  aloft — the 
mighty  castings,  many  of  them  not  yet  fitted,  perhaps  delay'd 
long,  yet  each  in  its  due  time,  with  definite  place  and  use  and 
meaning — Such,  more  like,  is  a  symbol  of  America. 

After  all  of  which,  returning  to  our  starting-point,  we  reiterate, 
and  in  the  whole  Land's  name,  a  welcome  to  our  eminent  guests. 
Visits  like  theirs,  and  hospitalities,  and  hand-shaking,  and  face 
meeting  face,  and  the  distant  brought  near — what  divine  solvents 
they  are  !  Travel,  reciprocity,  "  interviewing,"  intercommunion 
of  lands — what  are  they  but  Democracy's  and  the  highest  Law's 
best  aids  ?  O  that  our  own  country — that  every  land  in  the 
world — could  annually,  continually,  receive  the  poets,  thinkers, 
scientists,  even  the  official  magnates/  of  other  lands,  as  honor'd 
guests.  O  that  the  United  States,  especially  the  West,  could 
have  had  a  good  long  visit  and  explorative  jaunt,  from  the 
noble  and  melancholy  Tourgueneff,  before  he  died — or  from 
Victor  Hugo — or  Thomas  Carlyle.  Castelar,  Tennyson,  any  of 
the  two  or  three  great  Parisian  essayists — were  they  and  we  to 
come  face  to  face,  how  is  it  possible  but  that  the  right  under 
standing  would  ensue  ? 


THE  BIBLE  AS  POETRY. 

I  SUPPOSE  one  cannot  at  this  day  say  anything  new,  from  a 
literary  point  of  view,  about  those  autochthonic  bequests  of 
Asia — the  Hebrew  Bible,  the  mighty  Hindu  epics,  and  a  hun 
dred  lesser  but  typical  works ;  (not  now  definitely  including  the 
Iliad — though  that  work  was  certainly  of  Asiatic  genesis,  as 
Homer  himself  was — considerations  which  seem  curiously 
ignored.)  But  will  there  ever  be  a  time  or  place — ever  a 
student,  however  modern,  of  the  grand  art,  to  whom  those  com 
positions  will  not  afford  profounder  lessons  than  all  else  of  their 
kind  in  the  garnerage  of  the  past  ?  Could  there  be  any  more 
opportune  suggestion,  to  the  current  popular  writer  and  reader 
•of  verse,  what  the  office  of  poet  was  in  primeval  times — and  is 
yet  capable  of  being,  anew,  adjusted  entirely  to  the  modern  ? 

All  the  poems  of  Orientalism,  with  the  Old  and  New  Testa 
ments  at  the  centre,  tend  to  deep  and  wide,  (I  don't  know  but 
the  deepest  and  widest,)  psychological  development — with  little, 
or  nothing  at  all,  of  the  mere  aesthetic,  the  principal  verse- 
requirement  of  our  day.  Very  late,  but  unerringly,  comes  to 
•every  capable  student  the  perception  that  it.  is  not  in  beauty,  it 
is  not  in  art,  it  is  not  even  in  science,  that  the  profoundest  laws 
of  the  case  have  their  eternal  sway  and  outcropping. 

In  his  discourse  on  "  Hebrew  Poets  "  De  Sola  Mendes  said  : 
"  The  fundamental  feature  of  Judaism,  of  the  Hebrew  nationality, 
was  religion  ;  its  poetry  was  naturally  religious.  Its  subjects, 
God  and  Providence,  the  covenants  with  Israel,  God  in  Nature, 
and  as  reveal' d,  God  the  Creator  and  Governor,  Nature  in  her 
majesty  and  beauty,  inspired  hymns  and  odes  to  Nature's  God. 
And  then  the  checker'd  history  of  the  nation  furnish'd  allusions, 
illustrations,  and  subjects  for  epic  display — the  glory  of  the 
sanctuary,  the  offerings,  the  splendid  ritual,  the  Holy  City,  and 
lov'd  Palestine  with  its  pleasant  valleys  and  wild  tracts."  Dr. 
Mendes  said  "  that  rhyming  was  not  a  characteristic  of  Hebrew 
poetry  at  all.  Metre  was  not  a  necessary  mark  of  poetry. 
Great  poets  discarded  it ;  the  early  Jewish  poets  knew  it  not." 

Compared  with  the  famed  epics  of  Greece,  and  lesser  ones 
since,  the  spinal  supports  of  the  Bible  are  simple  and  meagre. 
All  its  history,  biography,  narratives,  etc.,  are  as  beads,  strung 
on  and  indicating  the  eternal  thread  of  the  Deific  purpose  and 

(43) 


44 


THE  BIBLE  AS  POETRY. 


power.  Yet  with  only  deepest  faith  for  impetus,  and  such  Deific 
purpose  for  palpable  or  impalpable  theme,  it  often  transcends 
the  masterpieces  of  Hellas,  and  all  masterpieces.  The  metaphors 
daring  beyond  account,  the  lawless  soul,  extravagant  by  our 
standards,  the  glow  of  love  and  friendship,  the  fervent  kiss — 
nothing  in  argument  or  logic,  but  unsurpass'd  in  proverbs,  in 
religious  ecstacy,  in  suggestions  of  common  mortality  and  death, 
man's  great  equalizers — the  spirit  everything,  the  ceremonies 
and  forms  of  the  churches  nothing,  faith  limitless,  its  immense 
sensuousness  immensely  spiritual — an  incredible,  all-inclusive 
non-worldliness  and  dew-scented  illiteracy  (the  antipodes  of  our 
Nineteenth  Century  business  absorption  and  morbid  refinement) 
— no  hair-splitting  doubts,  no  sickly  sulking  and  sniffling,  no 
"Hamlet,"  no  "Adonais,"  no  "  Thanatopsis,"  no  "  In  Memo- 
riam." 

The  culminated  proof  of  the  poetry  of  a  country  is  the  quality 
of  its  personnel,  which,  in  any  race,  can  never  be  really  superior 
without  superior  poems.  The  finest  blending  of  individuality 
with  universality  (in  my  opinion  nothing  out  of  the  galaxies  of 
the  "Iliad,"  or  Shakspere's  heroes,  or  from  the  Tennysonian 
"  Idyls,"  so  lofty,  devoted  and  starlike,)  typified  in  the  songs 
of  those  old  Asiatic  lands.  Men  and  women  as  great  columnar 
trees.  Nowhere  else  the  abnegation  of  self  towering  in  such 
quaint  sublimity ;  nowhere  else  the  simplest  human  emotions 
conquering  the  gods  of  heaven,  and  fate  itself.  (The  episode, 
for  instance,  toward  the  close  of  the  "  Mahabharata  " — the  jour 
ney  of  the  wife  Savitri  with  the  god  of  death,  Yama, 

"  One  terrible  to  see — blood-red  his  garb, 
His  body  huge  and  dark,  bloodshot  his  eyes, 
Which  flamed  like  suns  beneath  his  turban  cloth, 
Arm'd  was  he  with  a  noose," 

who  carries  off  the  soul  of  the  dead  husband,  the  wife  tenaciously 
following,  and — by  the  resistless  charm  .of  perfect  poetic  recita 
tion  ! — eventually  redeeming  her  captive  mate.) 

I  remember  how  enthusiastically  William  H.  Seward,  in  his 
last  days,  once  expatiated  on  these  themes,  from  his  travels  in 
Turkey,  Egypt,  and  Asia  Minor,  finding  the  oldest  Biblical 
narratives  exactly  illustrated  there  to-day  with  apparently  no 
break  or  change  along  three  thousand  years — the  veil'd  women, 
the  costumes,  the  gravity  and  simplicity,  all  the  manners  just  the 
same.  The  veteran  Trelawney  said  he  found  the  only  real 
nobleman  of  the  world  in  a  good  average  specimen  of  the  mid- 
aged  or  elderly  Oriental.  In  the  East  the  grand  figure,  always 
leading,  is  the  old  man,  majestic,  with  flowing  beard,  paternal, 


THE  BIBLE  AS  POETRY.  45 

etc.  In  Europe  and  America,  it  is,  as  we  know,  the  young 
fellow — in  novels,  a  handsome  and  interesting  hero,  more  or 
less  juvenile — in  operas,  a  tenor  with  blooming  cheeks,  black 
mustache,  superficial  animation,  and  perhaps  good  lungs,  but  no 
more  depth  than  skim-milk.  But  reading  folks  probably  get 
their  information  of  those  Bible  areas  and  current  peoples,  as 
depicted  in  print  by  English  and  French  cads,  the  most  shallow, 
impudent,  supercilious  brood  on  earth. 

I  have  said  nothing  yet  of  the  cumulus  of  associations  (per 
fectly  legitimate  parts  of  its  influence,  and  finally  in  many  re 
spects  the  dominant  parts,)  of  the  Bible  as  a  poetic  entity,  and 
of  every  portion  of  it.  Not  the  old  edifice  only — the  congeries 
also  of  events  and  struggles  and  surroundings,  of  which  it  has 
been  the  scene  and  motive — even  the  horrors,  dreads,  deaths. 
How  many  ages  and  generations  have  brooded  and  wept  and 
agonized  over  this  book  !  What  untellable  joys  and  ecstasies — 
what  support  to  martyrs  at  the  stake — from  it.  (No  really  great 
song  can  ever  attain  full  purport  till  long  after  the  death  of  its 
singer — till  it  has  accrued  and  incorporated  the  many  passions, 
many  joys  and  sorrows,  it  has  itself  arous'd.)  To  what  myriads 
has  it  been  the  shore  and  rock  of  safety — the  refuge  from  driving 
tempest  and  wreck !  Translated  in  all  languages,  how  it  has 
united  this  diverse  world  !  Of  civilized  lands  to-day,  whose  of 
our  retrospects  has  it  not  interwoven  and  link'd  and  permeated  ? 
Not  only  does  it  bring  us  what  is  clasp'd  within  its  covers ;  nay, 
that  is  the  least  of  what  it  brings.  Of  its  thousands,  there  is  not 
a  verse,  not  a  word,  but  is  thick-studded  with  human  emotions, 
successions  of  fathers  and  sons,  mothers  and  daughters,  of  our 
own  antecedents,  inseparable  from  that  background  of  us,  on 
which,  phantasmal  as  it  is,  all  that  we  are  to-day  inevitably  de 
pends — our  ancestry,  our  past. 

Strange,  but  true,  that  the  principal  factor  in  cohering  the 
nations,  eras  and  paradoxes  of  the  globe,  by  giving  them  a  com 
mon  platform  of  two  or  three  great  ideas,  a  commonalty  of 
origin,  and  projecting  cosmic  brotherhood,  the  dream  of  all 
hope,  all  time — that  the  long  trains,  gestations,  attempts  and 
failures,  resulting  in  the  New  World,  and  in  modern  solidarity 
and  politics — are  to  be  identified  and  resolv'd  back  into  a  col 
lection  of  old  poetic  lore,  which,  more  than  any  one  thing  else, 
has  been  the  axis  of  civilization  and  history  through  thousands 
of  years — and  except  for  which  this  America  of  ours,  with  its 
polity  and  essentials,  could  not  now  be  existing. 

No  true  bard  will  ever  contravene  the  Bible.  If  the  time  ever 
comes  when  iconoclasm  does  its  extremest  in  one  direction 
against  the  Books  of  the  Bible  in  its  present  form,  the  collection 


46  THE  BIBLE  AS  POETRY. 

must  still  survive  in  another,  and  dominate  just  as  much  as- 
hitherto,  or  more  than  hitherto,  through  its  divine  and  primal 
poetic  structure.  To  me,  that  is  the  living  and  definite  element- 
principle  of  the  work,  evolving  everything  else.  Then  the  con 
tinuity  ;  the  oldest  and  newest  Asiatic  utterance  and  character, 
and  all  between,  holding  together,  like  the  apparition  of  the 
sky,  and  coming  to  us  the  same.  Even  to  our  Nineteenth 
Century  here  are  the  fountain  heads  of  song. 


FATHER  TAYLOR   (AND 
ORATORY.) 

I  have  never  heard  but  one  essentially  perfect  orator — one  who- 
satisfied  those  depths  of  the  emotional  nature  that  in  most  cases 
go  through  life  quite  untouch'd,  unfed — who  held  every  hearer 
by  spells  which  no  conventionalist,  high  or  low — nor  any  pride 
or  composure,  nor  resistance  of  intellect — could  stand  against 
for  ten  minutes. 

And  by  the  way,  is  it  not  strange,  of  this  first-class  genius  in 
the  rarest  and  most  profound  of  humanity's  arts,  that  it  will  be 
necessary,  (so  nearly  forgotten  and  rubb'd  out  is  his  name  by 
the  rushing  whirl  of  the  last  twenty-five  years,)  to  first  inform 
current  readers  that  he  was  an  orthodox  minister,  of  no  particular 
celebrity,  who  during  a  long  life  preach'd  especially  to  Yankee 
sailors  in  an  old  fourth-class  church  down  by  the  wharves  in 
Boston — had  practically  been  a  sea-faring  man  through  his  earlier 
years — and  died  April  6,  1871,  "just  as  the  tide  turn'd,  going 
out  with  the  ebb  as  an  old  salt  should  "  ?  His  name  is  now  com 
paratively  unknown,  outside  of  Boston — and  even  there,  (though 
Dickens,  Mr.  Jameson,  Dr.  Bartol  and  Bishop  Haven  have  com 
memorated  him,)  is  mostly  but  a  reminiscence. 

During  my  visits  to  "the  Hub,"  in  1859  and  '60  I  several 
times  saw  and  heard  Father  Taylor.  In  the  spring  or  autumn, 
quiet  Sunday  forenoons,  I  liked  to  go  down  early  to  the  quaint 
ship-cabin-looking  church  where  the  old  man  minister'd — to 
enter  and  leisurely  scan  the  building,  the  low  ceiling,  every  thing 
strongly  timber'd  (polish'd  and  rubb'd  apparently,)  the  dark, 
rich  colors,  the  gallery,  all  in  half-light — and  smell  the  aroma 
of  old  wood — to  watch  the  auditors,  sailors,  mates,  "matlows," 
officers,  singly  or  in  groups,  as  they  came  in — their  physiogno 
mies,  forms,  dress,  gait,  as  they  walk'd  along  the  aisles, — their 
postures,  seating  themselves  in  the  rude,  roomy,  undoor'd,, 
uncushion'd  pews— and  the  evident  effect  upon  them  of  the  place, 
occasion,  and  atmosphere. 

The  pulpit,  rising  ten  or  twelve  feet  high,  against  the  rear 
wall,  was  back'd  by  a  significant  mural  painting,  in  oil — show 
ing  out  its  bold  lines  and  strong  hues  through  the  subdued  light 
of  the  building — of  a  stormy  sea,  the  waves  high-rolling,  and 

(47) 


48  FATHER  TAYLOR  (AND   ORATORY.) 

amid  them  an  old-style  ship,  all  bent  over,  driving  through  the 
gale,  and  in  great  peril — a  vivid  and  effectual  piece  of  limning, 
not  meant  for  the  criticism  of  artists  (though  I  think  it  had 
merit  even  from  that  standpoint,)  but  for  its  effect  upon  the 
congregation,  and  what  it  would  convey  to  them. 

Father  Taylor  was  a  moderate-sized  man,  indeed  almost  small, 
(reminded  me  of  old  Booth,  the  great  actor,  and  my  favorite  of 
those  and  preceding  days,)  well  advanced  in  years,  but  alert, 
with  mild  blue  or  gray  eyes,  and  good  presence  and  voice. 
Soon  as  he  open'd  his  mouth  I  ceas'd  to  pay  any  attention  to 
church  or  audience,  or  pictures  or  lights  and  shades  ;  a  far  more 
potent  charm  entirely  sway'd  me.  In  the  course  of  the  sermon, 
(there  was  no  sign  of  any  MS.,  or  reading  from  notes,)  some  of 
the  parts  would  be  in  the  highest  degree  majestic  and  picturesque. 
Colloquial  in  a  severe  sense,  it  often  lean'd  to  Biblical  and 
oriental  forms.  Especially  were  all  allusions  to  ships  and  the  ocean 
and  sailors'  lives,  of  unrival'd  power  and  life-likeness.  Some 
times  there  were  passages  of  fine  language  and  composition,  even 
from  the  purist's  point  of  view.  A  few  arguments,  and  of  the 
best,  but  always  brief  and  simple.  One  realized  what  grip  there 
might  have  been  in  such  words-of-mouth  talk  as  that  of  Socrates 
and  Epictetus.  In  the  main,  I  should  say,  of  any  of  these  dis 
courses,  that  the  old  Demosthenean  rule  and  requirement  of 
"action,  action,  action,"  first  in  its  inward  and  then  (very 
moderate  and  restrain 'd)  its  outward  sense,  was  the  quality  that 
had  leading  fulfilment. 

I  remember  I  felt  the  deepest  impression  from  the  old  man's 
prayers,  which  invariably  affected  me  to  tears.  Never,  on 
similar  or  any  other  occasions,  have  I  heard  such  irapassion'd 
pleading — such  human-harassing  reproach  (like  Hamlet  to  his 
mother,  in  the  closet) — such  probing  to  the  very  depths  of  that 
latent  conscience  and  remorse  which  probably  lie  somewhere  in 
the  background  of  every  life,  every  soul.  For  when  Father 
Taylor  preach'd  or  pray'd,  the  rhetoric  and  art,  the  mere 
words,  (which  usually  play  such  a  big  part)  seem'd  altogether  to 
disappear,  and  the  live  feeling  advanced  upon  you  and  seiz'd 
you  with  a  power  before  unknown.  Everybody  felt  this  marvel 
ous  and  awful  influence.  One  young  sailor,  a  Rhode  Islander, 
(who  came  every  Sunday,  and  I  got  acquainted  with,  and  talk'd 
to  once  or  twice  as  we  went  away,)  told  me,  "  that  must  be  the 
Holy  Ghost  we  read  of  in  the  Testament." 

I  should  be  at  a  loss  to  make  any  comparison  with  other 
preachers  or  public  speakers.  When  a  child  I  had  heard  Elias 
Hicks — and  Father  Taylor  (though  so  different  in  personal 
appearance,  for  Elias  was  of  tall  and  most  shapely  form,  with 


FATHER   TAYLOR  (AND  ORATORY.)  49 

black  eyes  that  blazed  at  times  like  meteors,)  always  reminded 
me  of  him.  Both  had  the  same  inner,  apparently  inexhaustible, 
fund  of  latent  volcanic  passion — the  same  tenderness,  blended 
with  a  curious  remorseless  firmness,  as  of  some  surgeon  operating 
on  a  belov'd  patient.  Hearing  such  men  sends  to  the  winds  all 
the  books,  and  formulas,  and  polish'd  speaking,  and  rules  of 
oratory. 

Talking  of  oratory,  why  is  it  that  the  unsophisticated  practices 
often  strike  deeper  than  the  train'd  ones?  Why  do  our  ex 
periences  perhaps  of  some  local  country  exhorter — or  often  in  the 
West  or  South  at  political  meetings — bring  the  most  definite  re 
sults?  In  my  time  I  have  heard  Webster,  Clay,  Edward 
Everett,  Phillips,  and  such  celebres ;  yet  I  recall  the  minor  but 
life-eloquence  of  men  like  John  P.  Hale,  Cassius  Clay,  and  one 
or  two  of  the  old  abolition  "  fanatics "  ahead  of  all  those 
stereotyped  fames.  Is  not — I  sometimes  question — the  first,  last, 
and  most  important  quality  of  all,  in  training  for  a  "  finish'd 
speaker,"  generally  unsought,  unreck'd  of,  both  by  teacher  and 
pupil  ?  Though  maybe  it  cannot  be  taught,  anyhow.  At  any 
rate,  we  need  to  clearly  understand  the  distinction  between 
oratory  and  elocution.  Under  the  latter  art,  including  some  of 
high  order,  there  is  indeed  no  scarcity  in  the  United  States, 
preachers,  lawyers,  actors,  lecturers,  &c.  With  all,  there  seem 
to  be  few  real  orators — almost  none. 

I. repeat,  and  would  dwell  upon  it  (more  as  suggestion  than 
mere  fact) — among  all  the  brilliant  lights  of  bar  or  stage  I  have 
heard  in  my  time  (for  years  in  New  York  and  other  cities  I 
haunted  the  courts  to  witness  notable  trials,  and  have  heard 
all  the  famous  actors  and  actresses  that  have  been  in  America 
the  past  fifty  years)  though  I  recall  marvellous  effects  from  one 
or  other  of  them,  I  never  had  anything  in  the  way  of  vocal  ut 
terance  to  shake  me  through  and  through,  and  become  fix'd, 
with  its  accompaniments,  in  my  memory,  like  those  prayers  and 
sermons — like  Father  Taylor's  personal  electricity  and  the  whole 
scene  there — the  prone  ship  in  the  gale,  and  dashing  wave  and 
foam  for  background — in  the  little  old  sea-church  in  Boston,  those 
summer  Sundays  just  before  the  Secession  War  broke  out. 


THE  SPANISH  ELEMENT  IN 
OUR  NATIONALITY. 

[Our  friends  at  Santa  Fe,  New  Mexico,  have  just  finish'd  their  long  drawn 
out  anniversary  of  the  333d  year  of  the  settlement  of  their  city  by  the  Spanish. 
The  good,  gray  Walt  Whitman  was  asked  to  write  them  a  poem  in  com 
memoration.  Instead  he  wrote  them  a  letter  as  follows: — Philadelphia  Press* 
August  5,  1883.] 

CAMDEN,  NEW  JERSEY,  July  20,  1883. 

To  Messrs.    Griffin,   Martinez,  Prince,  and  other  Gentlemen  at 
Santa  Fe  : 

DEAR  SIRS  : — Your  kind  invitation  to  visit  you  and  deliver  a 
poem  for  the  333d  Anniversary  of  founding  Santa  Fe  has 
reach'd  me  so  late  that  I  have  to  decline,  with  sincere  regret. 
But  I  will  say  a  few  words  off  hand. 

We  Americans  have  yet  to  really  learn  our  own  antecedents, 
and  sort  them,  to  unify  them.  They  will  be  found  ampler  than 
has  been  supposed,  and  in  widely  different  sources.  Thus  far, 
impress'd  by  New  England  writers  and  schoolmasters,  we  tacitly 
abandon  ourselves  to  the  notion  that  our  United  States  have  been 
fashion'd  from  the  British  Islands  only,  and  essentially  form  a 
second  England  only — which  is  a  very  great  mistake.  Many 
leading  traits  for  our  future  national  personality,  and  some  of  the 
best  ones,  will  certainly  prove  to  have  originated  from  other  than 
British  stock.  As  it  is,  the  British  and  German,  valuable  as  they 
are  in  the  concrete,  already  threaten  excess.  Or  rather,  I  should 
say,  they  have  certainly  reach'd  that  excess.  To-day,  something 
outside  of  them,  and  to  counterbalance  them,  is  seriously  needed. 

The  seething  materialistic  and  business  vortices  of  the  United 
States,  in  their  present  devouring  relations,  controlling  and  be 
littling  everything  else,  are,  in  my  opinion,  but  a  vast  and  indis 
pensable  stage  in  the  new  world's  development,  and  are  certainly 
to  be  follow'd  by  something  entirely  different — at  least  by  im 
mense  modifications.  Character,  literature,  a  society  worthy 
the  name,  are  yet  to  be  establish'd,  through  a  nationality  of 
noblest  spiritual,  heroic  and  democratic  attributes — not  one  of 
which  at  present  definitely  exists — entirely  different  from  the 
past,  though  unerringly  founded  on  it,  and  to  justify  it. 

To  that  composite  American  identity  of  the  future,  Spanish 
(5o) 


THE  SPANISH  ELEMENT  IN  OUR  NATIONALITY.         ^ 

character  will  supply  some  of  the  most  needed  parts.  No  stock 
shows  a  grander  historic  retrospect — grander  in  religiousness  and 
loyalty,  or  for  patriotism,  courage,  decorum,  gravity  and  honor. 
(It  is  time  to  dismiss  utterly  the  illusion-compound,  half  raw- 
head-and-bloody-bones  and  half  Mysteries-of-Udolpho,  inherited 
from  the  English  writers  of  the  past  200  years.  It  is  time  to 
realize — for  it  is  certainly  true — that  there  will  not  be  found  any 
more  cruelty,  tyranny,  superstition,  &c.,  in  the  resume  of  past 
Spanish  history  than  in  the  corresponding  resume  of  Anglo- 
Norman  history.  Nay,  I  think  there  will  not  be  found  so  much.) 

Then  another  point,  relating  to  American  ethnology,  past  and 
to  come,  I  will  here  touch  upon  at  a  venture.  As  to  our  abori 
ginal  or  Indian  population — the  Aztec  in  the  South,  and  many  a 
tribe  in  the  North  and  West — I  know  it  seems  to  be  agreed  that 
they  must  gradually  dwindle  as  time  rolls  on,  and  in  a  few  gen 
erations  more  leave  only  a  reminiscence,  a  blank.  But  I  am  not 
at  all  clear  about  that.  As  America,  from  its  many  far-back 
sources  and  current  supplies,  develops,  adapts,  entwines,  faith 
fully  identifies  its  own — are  we  to  see  it  cheerfully  accepting  and 
using  all  the  contributions  of  foreign  lands  from  the  whole  out 
side  globe — and  then  rejecting  the  only  ones  distinctively  its  own 
— the  autochthonic  ones? 

As  to  the  Spanish  stock  of  our  Southwest,  it  is  certain  to  me 
that  we  do  not  begin  to  appreciate  the  splendor  and  sterling 
value  of  its  race  element.  Who  knows  but  that  element,  like 
the  course  of  some  subterranean  river,  dipping  invisibly  for  a 
hundred  or  two  years,  is  now  to  emerge  in  broadest  flow  and 
permanent  action  ? 

If  I  might  assume  to  do  so,  I  would  like  to  send  you  the  most 
cordial,  heartfelt  congratulations  of  your  American  fellow-coun 
trymen  here.  You  have  more  friends  in  the  Northern  and  Atlan 
tic  regions  than  you  suppose,  and  they  are  deeply  interested  in 
the  development  of  the  great  Southwestern  interior,  and  in  what 
your  festival  would  arouse  to  public  attention. 

Very  respectfully,  &c.,  WALT  WHITMAN. 


WHAT     LURKS     BEHIND     SHAK- 
SPERE'S   HISTORICAL   PLAYS? 

We  all  know  how  much  mythus  there  is  in  the  Shakspere  question 
as  it  stands  to-day.  Beneath  a  few  foundations  of  proved  facts 
are  certainly  engulfd  far  more  dim  and  elusive  ones,  of  deepest 
importance — tantalizing  and  half  suspected — suggesting  ex 
planations  that  one  dare  not  put  in  plain  statement.  But  com 
ing  at  once  to  the  point,  the  English  historical  plays  are  to  me 
not  only  the  most  eminent  as  dramatic  performances  (my  maturest 
judgment  confirming  the  impressions  of  my  early  years,  that  the 
distinctiveness  and  glory  of  the  Poet  reside  not  in  his  vaunted 
dramas  of  the  passions,  but  those  founded  on  the  contests  of 
English  dynasties,  and  the  French  wars,)  but  form,  as  we  get  it 
all,  the  chief  in  a  complexity  of  puzzles.  Conceiv'd  out  of  the 
fullest  heat  and  pulse  of  European  feudalism — personifying  in 
unparallel'd  ways  the  mediaeval  aristocracy,  its  towering  spirit 
of  ruthless  and  gigantic  caste,  with  its  own  peculiar  air  and  ar 
rogance  (no  mere  imitation) — only  one  of  the  "wolfish  earls" 
so  plenteous  in  the  plays  themselves,  or  some  born  descendant 
and  knower,  might  seem  to  be  the  true  author  of  those  amazing 
works — works  in  some  respects  greater  than  anything  else  in  re 
corded  literature. 

The  start  and  germ-stock  of  the  pieces  on  which  the  present 
speculation  is  founded  are  undoubtedly  (with,  at  the  outset,  no 
small  amount  of  bungling  work)  in  "  Henry  VI."  It  is  plain 
to  me  that  as  profound  and  forecasting  a  brain  and  pen  as  ever 
appear'd  in  literature,  after  floundering  somewhat  in  the  first 
part  of  that  trilogy — or  perhaps  .draughting  it  more  or  less  ex 
perimentally  or  by  accident — afterward  developed  and  defined  his 
plan  in  the  Second  and  Third  Parts,  and  from  time  to  time, 
thenceforward,  systematically  enlarged  it  to  majestic  and  mature 
proportions  in  "Richard  II,"  "Richard  III,"  "King  John," 
"  Henry  IV,"  "  Henry  V,"  and  even  in  "  Macbeth,"  "  Corio- 
lanus  "  and  "Lear."  For  it  is  impossible  to  grasp  the  whole 
cluster  of  those  plays,  however  wide  the  intervals  and  different 
circumstances  of  their  composition,  without  thinking  of  them  as, 
in  a  free  sense,  the  result  of  an  essentially  controling  plan.  What 
was  that  plan?  Or,  rather,  what  was  veil'd  behind  it? — for  to 
(52) 


WHAT  LURKS  BEHIND  SHAKSPERE'S  PLAYS?  53 

me  there  was  certainly  something  so  veil'd.  Even  the  episodes 
of  Cade,  Joan  of  Arc,  and  the  like  (which  sometimes  seem  to 
me  like  interpolations  allow'd,)  may  be  meant  to  foil  the  pos 
sible  sleuth,  and  throw  any  too  'cute  pursuer  off  the  scent.  In 
the  whole  matter  I  should  specially  dwell  on,  and  make  much  of, 
that  inexplicable  element  of  every  highest  poetic  nature  which 
causes  it  to  cover  up  and  involve  its  real  purpose  and  meanings 
in  folded  removes  and  far  recesses.  Of  this  trait — hiding  the 
nest  where  common  seekers  may  never  find  it — the  Shaksperean 
works  afford  the  most  numerous  and  mark'd  illustrations  known 
to  me.  I  would  even  call  that  trait  the  leading  one  through  the 
whole  of  those  works. 

All  the  foregoing  to  premise  a  brief  statement  of  how  and 
where  I  get  my  new  light  on  Shakspere.  Speaking  of  the 
special  English  plays,  my  friend  William  O'Connor  says: 

They  seem  simply  and  rudely  historical  in  their  motive,  as  aiming  to  give 
in  the  rough  a  tableau  of  warring  dynasties, — and  carry  to  me  a  lurking  sense 
of  being  in  aid  of  some  ulterior  design,  probably  well  enough  understood  in 

that  age,  which  perhaps  time  and  criticism  will  reveal Their 

atmosphere  is  one  of  barbarous  and  tumultuous  gloom, — they  do  not  make  us 
love  the  times  they  limn,  ....  and  it  is  impossible  to  believe  that  the 
greatest  of  the  Elizabethan  men  could  have  sought  to  indoctrinate  the  age  with 
the  love  of  feudalism  which  his  own  drama  in  its  entirety,  if  the  view  taken 
of  it  herein  be  true,  certainly  and  subtly  saps  and  mines. 

Reading  the  just-specified  play  in  the  light  of  Mr.  O'Connor's 
suggestion,  I  defy  any  one  to  escape  such  new  and  deep  utter 
ance-meanings,  like  magic  ink,  warm'd  by  the  fire,  and  pre 
viously  invisible.  Will  it  not  indeed  be  strange  if  the  author  of 
"  Othello  *'  and  "  Hamlet  "  is  destin'd  to  live  in  America,  in  a 
generation  or  two,  less  as  the  cunning  draughtsman  of  the  pas 
sions,  and  more  as  putting  on  record  the  first  full  expose — and 
by  far  the  most  vivid  one,  immeasurably  ahead  of  doctrinaires 
and  economists — of  the  political  theory  and  results,  or  the  reason- 
why  and  necessity  for  them  which  America  has  come  on  earth 
to  abnegate  and  replace  ? 

The  summary  of  my  suggestion  would  be,  therefore,  that  while 
the  more  the  rich  and  tangled  jungle  of  the  Shaksperean  area  is 
travers'd  and  studied,  and  the  more  baffled  and  mix'd,  as  so 
far  appears,  becomes  the  exploring  student  (who  at  last  surmises 
everything,  and  remains  certain  of  nothing,)  it  is  possible  a 
future  age  of  criticism,  diving  deeper,  mapping  the  land  and 
lines  freer,  completer  than  hitherto,  may  discover  in  the  plays 
named  the  scientific  (Baconian?)  inauguration  of  modern  Demo 
cracy — furnishing  realistic  and  first-class  artistic  portraitures  of 
the  mediaeval  world,  the  feudal  personalties,  institutes,  in  their 


54 


WHAT  LURKS  BEHIND  SHAKSPERE'S  PLAYS? 


morbid  accumulations,  deposits,  upon  politics  and  sociology, — 
may  penetrate  to  that  hard-pan,  far  down  and  back  of  the  ostent 
of  to-day,  on  which  (and  on  which  only)  the  progressism  of  the 
last  two  centuries  has  built  this  Democracy  which  now  holds 
secure  lodgment  over  the  whole  civilized  world. 

Whether  such  was  the  unconscious,  or  (as  I  think  likely)  the 
more  or  less  conscious,  purpose  of  him  who  fashion'd  those  mar 
vellous  architectonics,  is  a  secondary  question. 


A  THOUGHT  ON   SHAK- 
SPERE.  .  |  ,  - 

The  most  distinctive  poems — the  most  permanently  rooted  and 
with  heartiest  reason  for  being — the  copious  cycle  of  Arthurian 
legends,  or  the  almost  equally  copious  Charlemagne  cycle,  or 
the  poems  of  the  Cid,  or  Scandinavian  Eddas,  or  Nibelungen, 
or  Chaucer,  or  Spenser,  or  bona  fide  Ossian,  or  Inferno — probably 
had  their  rise  in  the  great  historic  perturbations,  which  they 
came  in  to  sum  up  and  confirm,  indirectly  embodying  results  to 
date.  Then  however  precious  to  "culture,"  the  grandest  of 
those  poems,  it  may  be  said,  preserve  and  typify  results  offensive 
to  the  modern  spirit,  and  long  past  away.  To  state  it  briefly, 
and  taking  the  strongest  examples,  in  Homer  lives  the  ruthless 
military  prowess  of  Greece,  and  of  its  special  god-descended 
dynastic  houses ;  in  Shakspere  the  dragon-rancors  and  stormy 
feudal  splendor  of  mediaeval  caste. 

Poetry,  largely  consider'd,  is  an  evolution,  sending  out  im 
proved  and  ever-expanded  types — in  one  sense,  the  past,  even 
the  best  of  it,  necessarily  giving  place,  and  dying  out.  For  our 
existing  world,  the  bases  on  which  all  the  grand  old  poems  were 
built  have  become  vacuums — and  even  those  of  many  compara 
tively  modern  ones  are  broken  and  half-gone.  For  us  to-day, 
not  their  own  intrinsic  value,  vast  as  that  is,  backs  and  main 
tains  those  poems — but  a  mountain-high  growth  of  associations, 
the  layers  of  successive  ages.  Everywhere — their  own  lands  in 
cluded — (is  there  not  something  terrible  in  the  tenacity  with 
which  the  one  book  out  of  millions  holds  its  grip  ?) — the  Homeric 
and  Virgilian  works,  the  interminable  ballad-romances  of  the 
middle  ages,  the  utterances  of  Dante,  Spenser,  and  others,  are 
upheld  by  their  cumulus-entrenchment  in  scholarship,  and  as 
precious,  always  welcome,  unspeakably  valuable  reminiscences. 

Even  the  one  who  at  present  reigns  unquestion'd — of  Shak 
spere — for  all  he  stands  for  so  much  in  modern  literature,  he 
stands  entirely  for  the  mighty  aesthetic  sceptres  of  the  past,  not 
for  the  spiritual  and  democratic,  the  sceptres  of  the  future.  The 
inward  and  outward  characteristics  of  Shakspere  are  his  vast  and 
rich  variety  of  persons  and  themes,  with  his  wondrous  delinea 
tion  of  each  and  all — not  only  limitless  funds  of  verbal  and 
pictorial  resource,  but  great  excess,  superfcetation — mannerism, 

(55) 


56  A   THOUGHT  ON  SHAKSPERE. 

like  a  fine,  aristocratic  perfume,  holding  a  touch  of  musk 
(Euphues,  his  mark) — with  boundless  sumptuousness  and  adorn 
ment,  real  velvet  and  gems,  not  shoddy  nor  paste — but  a  good 
deal  of  bombast  and  fustian — (certainly  some  terrific  mouthing 
in  Shakspere!) 

Superb  and  inimitable  as  all  is,  it  is  mostly  an  objective  and 
physiological  kind  of  power  and  beauty  the  soul  finds  in  Shak 
spere — a  style  supremely  grand  of  the  sort,  but  in  my  opinion 
stopping  short  of  the  grandest  sort,  at  any  rate  for  fulfilling  and 
satisfying  modern  and  scientific  and  democratic  American  pur 
poses.  Think,  not  of  growths  as  forests  primeval,  or  Yellow 
stone  geysers,  or  Colorado  ravines,  but  of  costly  marble  palaces, 
and  palace  rooms,  and  the  noblest  fixings  and  furniture,  and 
noble  owners  and  occupants  to  correspond — rthink  of  carefully 
built  gardens  from  the  beautiful  but  sophisticated  gardening  art 
at  its  best,  with  walks  and  bowers  and  artificial  lakes,  and  appro 
priate  statue-groups  and  the  finest  cultivated  roses  and  lilies  and 
japonicas  in  plenty — and  you  have  the  tally  of  Shakspere.  The 
low  characters,  mechanics,  even  the  loyal  henchmen — all  in 
themselves  nothing — serve  as  capital  foils  to  the  aristocracy. 
The  comedies  (exquisite  as  they  certainly  are)  bringing  in  admir 
ably  portray'd  common  characters,  have  the  unmistakable  hue 
of  plays,  portraits,  made  for  the  divertisement  only  of  the  elite 
of  the  castle,  and  from  its  point  of  view.  The  comedies  are 
altogether  non-acceptable  to  America  and  Democracy. 

But  to  the  deepest  soul,  it  seems  a  shame  to  pick  and  choose 
from  the  riches  Shakspere  has  left  us — to  criticise  his  infinitely 
royal,  multiform  quality — to  gauge,  with  optic  glasses,  the  dazzle 
of  his  sun-like  beams. 

The  best  poetic  utterance,  after  all,  can  merely  hint,  or  remind> 
often  very  indirectly;  or  at  distant  removes.  Aught  of  real 
perfection,  or  the  solution  of  any  deep  problem,  or  any  com 
pleted  statement  of  the  moral,  the  true,  the  beautiful,  eludes  the 
greatest,  deftest  poet — flies  away  like  an  always  uncaught  bird. 


ROBERT  BURNS   AS    POET 
.AND   PERSON. 

WHAT  the  future  will  decide  about  Robert  Burns  and  hisworks-^- 
what  place  will  be  assign' d  them  on  that  great  roster  of  geniuses 
and  genius  which  can  only  be  finish' d  by  the  slow  but  sure  bal 
ancing  of  the  centuries  with  their  ample  average — I  of  course 
cannot  tell.  But  as  we  know  him,  from  his  recorded  utterances, 
and  after  nearly  one  century,  and  its  diligence  of  collections, 
songs,  letters,  anecdotes,  presenting  the  figure  of  the  canny 
Scotchman  in  a  fullness  and  detail  wonderfully  complete,  and  the 
lines  mainly  by  his  own  hand,  he  forms  to-day,  in  some  respects, 
the  most  interesting  personality  among  singers.  Then  there  are 
many  things  in  Burns's  poems  and  character  that  specially  endear 
him  to  America.  He  was  essentially  a  Republican — would  have 
been  at  home  in  the  Western  United  States,  and  probably  become 
eminent  there.  He  was  an  average  sample  of  the  good-natured, 
warm-blooded,  proud-spirited,  amative,  alimentive,  convivial, 
young  and  early-middle-aged  man  of  the  decent- born  middle 
classes  everywhere  and  any  how.  Without  the  race  of  which  he 
is  a  distinct  specimen,  (and  perhaps  his  poems)  America  and  her 
powerful  Democracy  could  not  exist  to-day — could  not  project 
with  unparallel'd  historic  sway  into  the  future. 

Perhaps  the  peculiar  coloring  of  the  era  of  Burns  needs  always 
first  to  be  consider'd.  It  included  the  times  of  the  '76-' 83  Rev 
olution  in  America,  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  an  unparallel'd 
chaos  development  in  Europe  and  elsewhere.  In  every  depart 
ment,  shining  and  strange  names,  like  stars,  some  rising,  some 
in  meridian,  some  declining — Voltaire,  Franklin,  Washington, 
Kant,  Goethe,  Fulton,  Napoleon,  mark  the  era.  And  while  so 
much,  and  of  grandest  moment,  fit  for  the  trumpet  of  the  world's 
fame,  was  being  transacted — that  little  tragi-comedy  of  R.  B.'s 
life  and  death  was  going  on  in  a  country  by-place  in  Scotland  ! 

Burns's  correspondence,  generally  collected  and  publish' d  since 
his  death,  gives  wonderful  glints  into  both  the  amiable  and  weak 
(and  worse  than  weak)  parts  of  his  portraiture,  habits,  good  and 
bad  luck,  ambition  and  associations.  His  letters  to  Mrs.  Dunlop, 
Mrs.  McLehose,  (Clarinda,)  Mr.  Thompson,  Dr.  Moore,  Robert 
Muir,  Mr.  Cunningham,  Miss  Margaret  Chalmers,  Peter  Hill, 

(57) 


58  ROBERT  BURNS  AS  POET  AND  PERSON. 

Richard  Brown,  Mrs.  Riddel,  Robert  Ainslie,  and  Robert  Gra 
ham,  afford  valuable  lights  and  shades  to  the  outline,  and  with 
numerous  others,  help  to  a  touch  here,  and  fill-in  there,  of  poet 
and  poems.  There  are  suspicions,  it  is  true,  of  "  the  Genteel 
Letter-Writer,"  with  scraps  and  words  from  "  the  Manual  of 
French  Quotations,"  and,  in  the  love-letters,  some  hollow  mouth- 
ings.  Yet  we  wouldn't  on  any  account  lack  the  letters.  A  full 
and  true  portrait  is  always  what  is  wanted ;  veracity  at  every 
hazard.  Besides,  do  we  not  all  see  by  this  time  that  the  story  of 
Burns,  even  for  its  own  sake,  requires  the  record  of  the  whole 
and  several,  with  nothing  left  out?  Completely  and  every  point 
minutely  told  out  its  fullest,  explains  and  justifies  itself — (as  per 
haps  almost  any  life  does.)  He  is  very  close  to  the  earth.  He 
pick'd  up  his  best  words  and  tunes  directly  from  the  Scotch  home- 
singers,  but  tells  Thompson  they  would  not  please  his,  T's, 
"  learn' d  lugs,"  adding,  "  I  call  them  simple — you  would  pro 
nounce  them  silly."  Yes,  indeed;  the  idiom  was  undoubtedly 
his  happiest  hit.  Yet  Dr.  Moore,  in  1789,  writes  to  Burns,  "If 
I  were  to  offer  an  opinion,  it  would  be  that  in  your  future  pro 
ductions  you  should  abandon  the  Scotch  stanza  and  dialect,  and 
adopt  the  measure  and  language  of  modern  English  poetry"  ! 

As  the  1 28th  birth-anniversary  of  the  poet  draws  on,  (January, 
1887,)  with  its  increasing  club-suppers,  vehement  celebrations, 
letters,  speeches,  and  so  on — (mostly,  as  William  O'Connor  says, 
from  people  who  would  not  have  noticed  R.  B.  at  all  during  his 
actual  life,  nor  kept  his  company,  or  read  his  verses,  on  any  ac 
count) — it  may  be  opportune  to  print  some  leisurely-jotted  notes 
I  find  in  my  budget.  I  take  my  observation  of  the  Scottish  bard 
by  considering  him  as  an  individual  amid  the  crowded  clusters, 
galaxies,  of  the  old  world — and  fairly  inquiring  and  suggesting 
what  out  of  these  myriads  he  too  may  be  to  the  Western  Republic. 
In  the  first  place  no  poet  on  record  so  fully  bequeaths  his  own 
personal  magnetism,*  nor  illustrates  more  pointedly  how  one's 

*  Probably  no  man  that  ever  lived — a  friend  has  made  the  statement — was 
so  fondly  loved,  both  by  men  and  women,  as  Robert  Burns.  The  reason  is 
not  hard  to  find  :  he  had  a  real  heart  of  flesh  and  blood  beating  in  his  bosom  ; 
you  could  almost  hear  it  throb.  "  Some  one  said,  that  if  you  had  shaken 
hands  with  him  his  hand  would  have  burnt  yours.  The  gods,  indeed,  made 
him  poetical,  but  Nature  had  a  hand  in  him  first.  His  heart  was  in  the  right 
place ;  he  did  not  pile  up  cantos  of  poetic  diction ;  he  pluck'd  the  mountain 
daisy  under  his  feet ;  he  wrote  of  field-mouse  hurrying  from  its  ruin'd  dwell 
ing.  He  held  the  plough  or  the  pen  with  the  same  firm,  manly  grasp.  And 
he  was  loved.  The  simple  roll  of  the  women  who  gave  him  their  affection 
and  their  sympathy  would  make  a  long  manuscript;  and  most  of  these  were 
of  such  noble  worth  that,  as  Robert  Chambers  says,  'their  character  may 
stand  as  a  testimony  in  favor  of  that  of  Burns.'  "  [As  I  understand,  the 


ROBERT  BURNS  AS  POET  AND  PERSON.  59 

verses,  by  time  and  reading,  can  so  curiously  fuse  with  the  versi 
fier's  own  life  and  death,  and  give  final  light  and  shade  to  all. 

I  would  say  a  large  part  of  the  fascination  of  Burns's  homely, 
simple  dialect-melodies  is  due,  for  all  current  and  future  readers, 
to  the  poet's  personal  "errors,"  the  general  bleakness  of  his  lot, 
his  ingrain'd  pensiveness,  his  brief  dash  into  dazzling,  tantaliz 
ing,  evanescent  sunshine — finally  culminating  in  those  last  years 
of  his  life,  his  being  taboo'd  and  in  debt,  sick  and  sore,  yaw'd 
as  by  contending  gales,  deeply  dissatisfied  with  everything,  most 
of  all  with  himself — high-spirited  too — (no  man  ever  really 
higher-spirited  than  Robert  Burns.)  I  think  it  a  perfectly  legi 
timate  part  too.  At  any  rate  it  has  come  to  be  an  impalpable 
aroma  through  which  only  both  the  songs  and  their  singer  must 
henceforth  be  read  and  absorb' d.  Through  that  view-medium 
of  misfortune — of  a  noble  spirit  in  low  environments,  and  of  a 
squalid  and  premature  death — we  view  the  undoubted  facts, 
(giving,  as  we  read  them  now,  a  sad  kind  of  pungency,)  that 
Burns's  were,  before  all  else,  the  lyrics  of  illicit  loves  and  ca 
rousing  intoxication.  Perhaps  even  it  is  this  strange,  impalpable 
post-mortem  comment  and  influence  referr'd  to,  that  gives  them 
their  contrast,  attraction,  making  the  zest  of  their  author's  after 
fame.  If  he  had  lived  steady,  fat,  moral,  comfortable,  well-to- 
do  years,  on  his  own  grade,  (let  alone,  what  of  course  was  out 
of  the  question,  the  ease  and  velvet  and  rosewood  and  copious 
royalties  of  Tennyson  or  Victor  Hugo  or  Longfellow,)  and  died 
well-ripen'd  and  respectable,  where  could  have  come  in  that  burst 
of  passionate  sobbing  and  remorse  which  well'd  forth  instantly 
and  generally  in  Scotland,  and  soon  follow'd  everywhere  among 
English-speaking  races,  on  the  announcement  of  his  death  ?  and 
which,  with  no  sign  of  stopping,  only  regulated  and  vein'd  with 
fitting  appreciation,  flows  deeply,  widely  yet? 

Dear  Rob  !  manly,  witty,  fond,  friendly,  full  of  weak  spots  as 
well  as  strong  ones — essential  type  of  so  many  thousands — perhaps 
the  average,  as  just  said,  of  the  decent-born  young  men  and  the 
early  mid-aged,  not  only  of  the  British  Isles,  but  America,  too, 
North  and  South,  just  the  same.  I  think,  indeed,  one  best  part 
of  Burns  is  the  unquestionable  proof  he  presents  of  the  perennial 
existence  among  the  laboring  classes,  especially  farmers,  of  the 
finest  latent  poetic  elements  in  their  blood.  (How  clear  it  is  to 
me  that  the  common  soil  has  always  been,  and  is  now,  thickly 
strewn  with  just  such  gems.)  He  is  well-called  the  Ploughman. 


foregoing  is  from  an  extremely  rare  book  publish'd  by  M'Kie,  in  Kilmar- 
nock.  I  find  the  whole  beautiful  paragraph  in  a  capital  paper  on  Burns,  by 
Amelia  Barr.] 


60  ROBERT  BURNS  AS  POET  AND  PERSON. 

"  Holding  the  plough,"  said  his  brother  Gilbert,  "  was  the  favor 
ite  situation  with  Robert  for  poetic  compositions ;  and  some  of 
his  best  verses  were  produced  while  he  was  at  that  exercise."  "I 
must  return  to  my  humble  station,  and  woo  my  rustic  muse  in  my 
wonted  way,  at  the  plough-tail."  1787,  to  the  Earl  of  Buchan. 
He  has  no  high  ideal  of  the  poet  or  the  poet's  office ;  indeed 
quite  a  low  and  contracted  notion  of  both  : 

"  Fortune  !  if  thou'll  but  gie  me  still 
Hale  breeks,  a  scone,  and  whiskey  gill, 
An'  rowth  o'  rhyme  to  rave  at  will, 
Tak'  a'  the  rest." 


See  also  his  rhym'd  letters  to  Robert  Graham  invoking  patron 
age  ;  "one  stronghold,"  Lord  Glencairn,  being  dead,  now  these 
appeals  to  "  Fintra,  my  other  stay,"  (with  in  one  letter  a  copious 
shower  of  vituperation  generally.)  In  his  collected  poems  there 
is  no  particular  unity,  nothing  that  can  be  called  a  leading  the 
ory,  no  unmistakable  spine  or  skeleton.  Perhaps,  indeed,  their 
very  desultoriness  is  the  charm  of  his  songs  :  "I  take  up  one  or 
another,"  he  says  in  a  letter  to  Thompson,  "just  as  the  bee  of 
the  moment  buzzes  in  my  bonnet-lug." 

Consonantly  with  the  customs  of  the  time — yet  markedly  in 
consistent  in  spirit  with  Burns's  own  case,  (and  not  a  little  pain 
ful  as  it  remains  on  record,  as  depicting  some  features  of  the  bard 
himself,)  the  relation  called  patronage  existed  between  the  nobil 
ity  and  gentry  on  one  side,  and  literary  people  on  the  other,  and 
gives  one  of  the  strongest  side-lights  to  the  general  coloring  of 
poems  and  poets.  It  crops  out  a  good  deal  in  Burns's  Letters, 
and  even  necessitated  a  certain  flunkeyism  on  occasions,  through 
life.  It  probably,  with  its  requirements,  (while  it  help'd  in 
money  and  countenance)  did  as  much  as  any  one  cause  in  making 
that  life  a  chafed  and  unhappy  one,  ended  by  a  premature  and 
miserable  death. 

Yes,  there  is  something  about  Burns  peculiarly  acceptable  to 
the  concrete,  human  points  of  view.  He  poetizes  work-a-day 
agricultural  labor  and  life,  (whose  spirit  and  sympathies,  as  well 
as  practicalities,  are  much  the  same  everywhere,)  and  treats  fresh, 
often  coarse,  natural  occurrences,  loves,  persons,  not  like  many 
new  and  some  old  poets  in  a  genteel  style  of  gilt  and  china,  or  at 
second  or  third  removes,  but  in  their  own  born  atmosphere, 
laughter,  sweat,  unction.  Perhaps  no  one  ever  sang  "  lads  and 
lasses" — that  universal  race,  mainly  the  same,  too,  all  ages,  all 
lands — down  on  their  own  plane,  as  he  has.  He  exhibits  no 
philosophy  worth  mentioning  ;  his  morality  is  hardly  more  than 


ROBERT  BURNS  AS  POET  AND  PERSON.  6 1 

parrot-talk—not  bad  or  deficient,  but-  cheap,  shopworn,  the 
platitudes  of  old  aunts  and  uncles  to  the  youngsters  (be  good  boys 
and  keep  your  noses  clean.)  Only  when  he  gets  at  Poosie 
Nansie's,  celebrating  the  "barley  bree,"  or  among  tramps,  or 
democratic  bouts  and  drinking  generally, 

("  Freedom  and  whiskey  gang  thegither,") 

we  have,  in  his  own  unmistakable  color  and  warmth,  those  inte 
riors  of  rake-helly  life  and  tavern  fun — the  cantabile  of  jolly  beg 
gars  in  highest  jinks — lights  and  groupings  of  rank  glee  and 
brawny  amorousness,  outvying  the  best  painted  pictures  of  the 
Dutch  school,  or  any  school. 

By  America  and  her  democracy  such  a  poet,  I  cannot  too  often 
repeat,  must  be  kept  in  loving  remembrance ;  but  it  is  best  that 
discriminations  be  made.  His  admirers  (as  at  those  anniversary 
suppers,  over  the  "hot  Scotch  ")  will  not  accept  for  their  favor 
ite  anything  less  than  the  highest  rank,  alongside  of  Homer, 
Shakspere,  etc.  Such,  in  candor,  are  not  the  true  friends  of  the 
Ayrshire  bard,  who  really  needs  a  different  place  quite  by  him 
self.  The  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  express  courage,  craft,  full-grown 
heroism  in  situations  of  danger,  the  sense  of  command  and  leader 
ship,  emulation,  the  last  and  fullest  evolution  of  self-poise  as  in 
kings,  and  god-like  even  while  animal  appetites.  The  Shaks- 
perean  compositions,  on  vertebers  and  framework  of  the  primary 
passions,  portray  (essentially  the  same  as  Homer's,)  the  spirit  and 
letter  of  the  feudal  world,  the  Norman  lord,  ambitious  and  arro 
gant,  taller  and  nobler  than  common  men — with  much  underplay 
and  gusts  of  heat  and  cold,  volcanoes  and  stormy  seas.  Burns 
(and  some  will  say  to  his  credit)  attempts  none  of  these  themes. 
He  poetizes  the  humor,  riotous  blood,  sulks,  amorous  torments, 
fondness  for  the  tavern  and  for  cheap  objective  nature,  with  dis 
gust  at  the  grim  and  narrow  ecclesiasticism  of  his  time  and  land, 
of  a  young  farmer  on  a  bleak  and  hired  farm  in  Scotland,  through 
the  years  and  -under  the  circumstances  of  the  British  politics  of 
that  time,  and  of  his  short  personal  career  as  author,  from  1783 
to  1796.  He  is  intuitive  and  affectionate,  and.  just  emerged  or 
emerging  from  the  shackles  of  the  kirk,  from  poverty,  ignorance, 
and  from  his  own  rank  appetites — (out  of  which  latter,  however, 
he  never  extricated  himself.)  It  is  to  be  said  that  amid  not  a 
little  smoke  and  gas  in  his  poems,  there  is  in  almost  every  piece 
a  spark  of  fire,  and  now  and  then  the  real  afflatus.  He  has  been 
applauded  as  democratic,  and  with  some  warrant ;  while  Shak 
spere,  and  with  the  greatest  warrant,  has  been  called  monarchical 
or  aristocratic  (which  he  certainly  is.)  But  the  splendid  person- 


62  ROBERT  BURNS  AS  POET  AND  PERSON. 

alizations  of  Shakspere,  formulated  on  the  largest,  freest,  most 
heroic,  most  artistic  mould,  are  to  me  far  dearer  as  lessons,  and 
more  precious  even  as  models  for  Democracy,  than  the  humdrum 
samples  Burns  presents.  The  motives  of  some  of  his  effusions  are 
certainly  discreditable  personally — one  or  two  of  them  markedly 
so.  He  has,  moreover,  little  or  no  spirituality.  This  last  is  his 
mortal  flaw  and  defect,  tried  by  highest  standards.  The  ideal  he 
never  reach'd  (and  yet  I  think  he  leads  the  way  to  it.)  He  gives 
melodies,  and  now  and  then  the  simplest  and  sweetest  ones ;  but 
harmonies,  complications,  oratorios  in  words,  never.  (I  do  not 
speak  this  in  any  deprecatory  sense.  Blessed  be  the  memory  of 
the  warm-hearted  Scotchman  for  what  he  has  left  us,  just  as  it  is!) 
He  likewise  did  not  know  himself,  in  more  ways  than  one. 
Though  so  really  free  and  independent,  he  prided  himself  in  his 
songs  on  being  a  reactionist  and  a  Jacobite — on  persistent  senti 
mental  adherency  to  the  cause  of  the  Stuarts — the  weakest,  thin 
nest,  most  faithless,  brainless  dynasty  that  ever  held  a  throne. 

Thus,  while  Burns  is  not  at  all  great  for  New  World  study,  in 
the  sense  that  Isaiah  and  Eschylus  and  the  book  of  Job  are  un 
questionably  great — is  not  to  be  mentioned  with  Shakspere — 
hardly  even  with  current  Tennyson  or  our  Emerson — he  has  a 
nestling  niche  of  his  own,  all  fragrant,  fond,  and  quaint  and 
homely — a  lodge  built  near  but  outside  the  mighty  temple  of  the 
gods  of  song  and  art — those  universal  strivers,  through  their  works 
of  harmony  and  melody  and  power,  to  ever  show  or  intimate  man's 
crowning,  last,  victorious  fusion  in  himself  of  Real  and  Ideal. 
Precious,  too — fit  and  precious  beyond  all  singers,  high  or  low — 
will  Burns  ever  be  to  the  native  Scotch,  especially  to  the  working- 
classes  of  North  Britain  ;  so  intensely  one  of  them,  and  so  racy  of 
the  soil,  sights,  and  local  customs.  He  often  apostrophizes  Scot 
land,  and  is,  or  would  be,  enthusiastically  patriotic.  His  country 
has  lately  commemorated  him  in  a  statue.*  His  aim  is  declaredly 
to  be  'a.  Rustic  Bard.'  His  poems  were  all  written  in  youth  or 
young  manhood,  (he  was  little  more  than  a  young  man  when  he 

*The  Dumfries  statue  of  Robert  Burns  was  successfully  unveil'd  April 
1 88 1  by  Lord  Roseberry,  the  occasion  having  been  made  national  in  its  char 
acter.  Before  the  ceremony,  a  large  procession  paraded  the  streets  of  the 
town,  all  the  trades  and  societies  of  that  part  of  Scotland  being  represented,  at 
the  head  of  which  went  dairymen  and  ploughmen,  the  former  driving  their 
carls  and  being  accompanied  by  their  maids.  The  statue  is  of  Sicilian  marble. 
It  rests  on  a  pedestal  of  gray  stone  five  feet  high.  The  poet  is  represented  as 
sitting  easily  on  an  old  tree  root,  holding  in  his  left  hand  a  cluster  of  daisies. 
His  face  is  turn'd  toward  the  right  shoulder,  and  the  eyes  gaze  into  the  dis 
tance.  .  Near  by  lie  a  collie  dog,  a  broad  bonnet  half  covering  a  well-thumb'd 
song-book,  and  a  rustic  flageolet.  The  costume  is  taken  from  the  Nasmyth. 
portrait,  which  has  been  follow'd  for  the  features  of  the  face. 


EGBERT  BURNS  AS  POET  AND  PERSON.  63, 

died.)  His  collected  works  in  giving  everything,  are  nearly  one 
half  first  drafts.  His  brightest  hit  is  his  use  of  the  Scotch  patois, 
so  full  of  terms  flavor'd  like  wild  fruits  or  berries.  Then  I  should 
make  an  allowance  to  Burns  which  cannot  be  made  for  any  other 
poet.  Curiously  even  the  frequent  crudeness,  haste,  deficiencies, 
(flatness  and  puerilities  by  no  means  absent)  prove  upon  the  whole 
not  out  of  keeping  in  any  comprehensive  collection  of  his  works, 
heroically  printed,  '  following  copy,'  every  piece,  every  line  ac 
cording  to  originals.  Other  poets  might  tremble  for  such  bold 
ness,  such  rawness.  In  '  this  odd-kind  chiel '  such  points 
hardly  mar  the  rest.  Not  only  are  they  in  consonance  with  the 
underlying  spirit  of  the  pieces,  but  complete  the  full  abandon 
and  veracity  of  the  farm-fields  and  the  home-brew'd  flavor  of  the 
Scotch  vernacular.  (Is  there  not  often  something  in  the  very 
neglect,  unfinish,  careless  nudity,  slovenly  hiatus,  coming  from 
intrinsic  genius,  and  not  '  put  on,'  that  secretly  pleases  the  soul 
more  than  the  wrought  and  re-wrought  polish  of  the  most  per 
fect  verse  ?)  Mark  the  native  spice  and  untranslatable  twang  in 
the  very  names  of  his  songs — "O  for  ane  and  twenty,  Tarn," 
"John  Barleycorn,"  "Last  May  a  braw  Wooer,"  "  Rattlin 
roarin  Willie,"  "  O  wert  thou  in  the  cauld,  cauld  blast,"  "Gude 
e'en  to  you,  Kimmer,"  "  Merry  hae  I  been  teething  a  Heckle," 
"  O  lay  thy  loof  in  mine,  lass,"  and  others. 

The  longer  and  more  elaborated  poems  of  Burns  are  just  such 
as  would  please  a  natural  but  homely  taste,  and  cute  but  average 
intellect,  and  are  inimitable  in  their  way.  The  "Twa  Dogs,"  (one 
of  the  best)  with  the  conversation  between  Cesar  and  Luath,  the 
"Brigs  of  Ayr,"  "the  Cotter's  Saturday  Night,"  "  Tarn  O'Shan- 
ter  " — all  will  be  long  read  and  re-read  and  admired,  and  ever 
deserve  to  be.  With  nothing  profound  in  any  of  them,  what 
there  is  of  moral  and  plot  has  an  inimitably  fresh  and  racy  flavor. 
If  it  came  to  question,  Literature  could  well  afford  to  send  adrift 
many  a  pretensive  poem,  and  even  book  of  poems,  before  it  could 
spare  these  compositions. 

Never  indeed  was  there  truer  utterance  in  a  certain  range  of 
idiosyncracy  than  by  this  poet.  Hardly  a  piece  of  his,  large  or 
small,  but  has  "snap"  and  raciness.  He  puts  in  cantering  rhyme 
(often  doggerel)  much  cutting  irony  and  idiomatic  ear-cuffing  of 
the  kirk-deacons — drily  good-natured  addresses  to  his  cronies, 
(he  certainly  would  not  stop  us  if  he  were  here  this  moment, 
from  classing  that  "to  the  De'il"  among  them) — "toMailieand 
her  Lambs,"  "to  auld  Mare  Maggie,"  "to  a  Mouse," 

''Wee,  sleekit,  cowrin,  tim'rous  beastie :  " 
"to  a  Mountain  Daisy,"  "to  a  Haggis,"  u  to  a  Louse,7'  "to  the- 


64  ROBERT  BURNS  AS  POET  AND  PERSON. 

Toothache,"  etc. — and  occasionally  to  his  brother  bards  and  lady 
or  gentleman  patrons,  often  with  strokes  of  tenderest  sensibility, 
idiopathic  humor,  and  genuine  poetic  imagination — still  oftener 
with  shrewd,  original,  sheeny,  steel-flashes  of  wit,  home-spun 
sense,  or  lance-blade  puncturing.  Then,  strangely,  the  basis  of 
Burns's  character,  with  all  its  fun  and  manliness,  was  hypochon 
dria,  the  blues,  palpable  enough  in  "Despondency,"  "Man  was 
made  to  Mourn,"  "  Address  to  Ruin,"  a  "Bard's  Epitaph,"  &c. 
From  such  deep-down  elements  sprout  up,  in  very  contrast  and 
paradox,  those  riant  utterances  of  which  a  superficial  reading  will 
not  detect  the  hidden  foundation.  Yet  nothing  is  clearer  to  me 
than  the  black  and  desperate  background  behind  those  pieces — as 
I  shall  now  specify  them.  I  find  his  most  characteristic,  Nature's 
masterly  touch  and  luxuriant  life-blood,  color  and  heat,  not  in 
"Tarn  O'Shanter,"  "the  Cotter's  Saturday  Night,"  "  Scots  who 
hae,"  "Highland  Mary,"  "the  Twa  Dogs,"  and  the  like,  but  in 
"the  Jolly  Beggars,"  "Rigs  of  Barley,"  "Scotch  Drink,"  "the 
Epistle  to  John  Rankine,"  "Holy  Willie's  Prayer,"  and  in 
"Halloween,"  (to  say  nothing  of  a  certain  cluster,  known  still 
to  a  small  inner  circle  in  Scotland,  but,  for  good  reasons,  not 
published  anywhere.)  In  these  compositions,  especially  the  first, 
there  is  much  indelicacy  (some  editions  flatly  leave  it  out,)  but 
the  composer  reigns  alone,  with  handling  free  and  broad  and 
true,  and  is  an  artist.  You  may  see  and  feel  the  man  indirectly 
in  his  other  verses,  all  of  them,  with  more  or  less  life-likeness — 
but  these  I  have  named  last  call  out  pronouncedly  in  his  own 
voice, 

"  I,  Rob,  am  here." 

Finally,  in  any  summing-up  of  Burns,  though  so  much  is  to 
be  said  in  the  way  of  fault-finding,  drawing  black  marks,  and 
doubtless  severe  literary  criticism — (in  the  present  outpouring  I 
have  *  kept  myself  in,'  rather  than  allow' d  any  free  flow) — after 
full  retrospect  of  his  works  and  life,  the  aforesaid  '  odd-kind 
chiel  '  remains  to  my  heart  and  brain  as  almost  the  tenderest, 
manliest,  and  (even  if  contradictory)  dearest  flesh-and-blood 
figure  in  all  the  streams  and  clusters  of  by-gone  poets. 


A  WORD  ABOUT  TENNYSON. 

BEAUTIFUL  as  the  song  was,  the  original  '  Locksley  Hall '  of 
half  a  century  ago  was  essentially  morbid,  heart-broken,  finding 
fault  with  everything,  especially  the  fact  of  money's  being  made 
(as  it  ever  must  be,  and  perhaps  should  be)  the  paramount  matter 
in  worldly  affairs ; 

Every  door  is  barr'd  v/ith  gold,  and  opens  but  to  golden  keys. 
First,  a  father,  having  fallen  in  battle,  his  child  (the  singer) 
Was  left  a  trampled  orphan,  and  a  selfish  uncle's  ward. 

Of  course  love  ensues.  The  woman  in  the  chant  or  monologue 
proves  a  false  one ;  and  as  far  as  appears  the  ideal  of  woman,  in 
the  poet's  reflections,  is  a  false  one — at  any  rate  for  America. 
Woman  is  not '  the  lesser  rrlan.'  (The  heart  is  not  the  brain.) 
The  best  of  the  piece  of  fifty  years  since  is  its  concluding  line  : 

For  the  mighty  wind  arises  roaring  seaward  and  I  go. 

Then  for  this  current  1886-7,  a  just-out  sequel,  which  (as  an 
apparently  authentic  summary  says)  '  reviews  the  life  of  mankind 
during  the  past  sixty  years,  and  comes  to  the  conclusion  that 
its  boasted  progress  is  of  doubtful  credit  to  the  world  in  general 
and  to  England  in  particular.  A  cynical  vein  of  denunciation 
of  democratic  opinions  and  aspirations  runs  throughout  the 
poem  in  mark'd  contrast  with  the  spirit  of  the  poet's  youth.' 
Among  the  most  striking  lines  of  this  sequel  are  the  following  : 

Envy  wears  the  mask  of  love,  and,  laughing  sober  fact  to  scorn, 
Cries  to  weakest  as  to  strongest,  '  Ye  are  equals,  equal  born,' 
Equal-born  !     Oh  yes,  if  yonder  hill  be  level  with  the  flat. 
Charm  us,  orator,  till  the  lion  look  no  larger  than  the  cat : 
Till  the  cat,  through  that  mirage  of  overheated  language,  loom 
Larger  than  the  lion  Demo — end  in  working  its  own  doom. 
Tumble  Nature  heel  o'er  head,  and,  yelling  with  the  yelling  street, 
Set  the  feet  above  the  brain,  and  swear  the  brain  is  in  the  feet. 
Bring  the  old  dark  ages  back,  without  the  faith,  without  the  hope 
Beneath  the  State,  the  Church,  the  Throne,  and  roll  their  ruins  down  the 
slope.  '  .  £ 

5  (65) 


66  A    WORD  ABOUT  TENNYSON. 

I  should  say  that  all  this  is  a  legitimate  consequence  of  the  tone 
and  convictions  of  the  earlier  standards  and  points  of  view. 
Then  some  reflections,  down  to  the  hard-pan  of  this  sort  of 
thing. 

The  course  of  progressive  politics  (democracy)  is  so  certain 
and  resistless,  not  only  in  America  but  in  Europe,  that  we  can 
well  afford  the  warning  calls,  threats,  checks,  neutralizings,  in- 
imaginative  literature,  or  any  department,  of  such  deep-sounding 
and  high-soaring  voices  as  Carlyle's  and  Tennyson's.  Nay,  the 
blindness,  excesses,  of  the  prevalent  tendency — the  dangers  of 
the  urgent' trends  of  our  times — in  my  opinion,  need  such  voices 
almost  more  than  any.  I  should,  too,  call  it  a  signal  instance 
of  democratic  humanity's  luck  that  it  has  such  enemies  to  con 
tend  with — so  candid,  so  fervid,  so  heroic.  But  why  do  I  say 
enemies?  Upon  the  whole  is  not  Tennyson — and  was  not  Car- 
lyle  (like  an  honest  and  stern  physician) — the  true  friend  of  our 
age? 

Let  me  assume  to  pass  verdict,  or  perhaps  momentary  judg 
ment,  for  the  United  States  on  this  poet — a  remov'd  and  dis 
tant  position  giving  some  advantages  over  a  nigh  one.  What  is 
Tennyson's  service  to  his  race,  times,  and  especially  to  Amer 
ica?  First,  I  should  say — or  at  least  not  forget — his  personal 
character.  He  is  not  to  be  mention'd  as  a  rugged,  evolutionary, 
aboriginal  force — but  (and  a  great  lesson  is  in  it)  he  has  been 
consistent  throughout  with  the  native,  healthy,  patriotic  spinal 
element  and  promptings  of  himself.  His  moral  line  is  local  and 
conventional,  but  it  is  vital  and  genuine.  He  reflects  the  upper- 
crust  of  his  time,  its  pale  cast  of  thought — even  its  ennui.  Then 
the  simile  of  my  friend  John  Burroughs  is  entirely  true,  '  his. 
glove  is  a  glove  of  silk,  but  the  hand  is  a  hand  of  iron.'  He 
shows  how  one  can  be  a  royal  laureate,  quite  elegant  and  *  aris 
tocratic,'  and  a  little  queer  and  affected,  and  at  the  same  time 
perfectly  manly  and  natural.  As  to  his  non-democracy,  it  fits 
him  well,  and  I  like  him  the  better  for  it.  I  guess  we  all  like  to 
have  (I  am  sure  I  do)  some  one  who  presents  those  sides  of  a 
thought,  or  possibility,  different  from  our  own — different  and 
yet  with  a  sort  of  home-likeness — a  tartness  and  contradiction 
offsetting  the  theory  as  we  view  it,  and  construed  from  tastes 
and  proclivities  not  at  all  his  own. 

To  me,  Tennyson  shows  more  than  any  poet  I  know  (perhaps 
has  been  a  warning  to  me)  how  much  there  is  in  finest  verbal 
ism.  There  is  such  a  latent  charm  in  mere  words,  cunning  col- 
locutions,  and  in  the  voice  ringing  them,  which  he  has  caught 
and  brought  out,  beyond  all  others — as  in  the  line, 
And  hollow,  hollow,  hollow,  all  delight, 


A    WORD  ABOUT  TENNYSON.  67 

in  'The  Passing  of  Arthur,'  and  evidenced  in  « The  Lady  of 
Shalott,'  *  The  Deserted  House,'  and  many  other  pieces. 
Among  the  best  (I  often  linger  over  them  again  and  again)  are 
*  Lucretius,'  *  The  Lotos  Eaters,'  and  'The  Northern  Farmer.' 
His  mannerism  is  great,  but  it  is  a  noble  and  welcome  man 
nerism.  His  very  best  work,  to  me,  is  contain'd  in  the  books 
of  '  The  Idyls  of  the  King,'  and  all  that  has  grown  out  of  them. 
Though  indeed  we  could  spare  nothing  of  Tennyson,  however 
small  or  however  peculiar — not  'Break,  Break,'  nor  '  Flower  in 
the  Crannied  Wall,'  nor  the  old,  eternally-told  passion  of  '  Ed 
ward  Gray  :  ' 

Love  may  come  and  love  may  go, 
And  fly  like  a  bird  from  tree  to  tree. 

But  I  will  love  no  more,  no  more 
Till  Ellen  Adair  come  back  to  me. 

Yes,  Alfred  Tennyson's  is  a  superb  character,  and  will  help 
give  illustriousness,  through  the  long  roll  of  time,  to  our  Nine 
teenth  Century.  In  its  bunch  of  orbic  names,  shining  like  a 
constellation  of  stars,  his  will  be  one  of  the  brightest.  His  very 
faults,  doubts,  swervings,  doublings  upon  himself,  have  been 
typical  of  our  age.  We  are  like  the  voyagers  of  a  ship,  casting 
off  for  new  seas,  distant  shores.  We  would  still  dwell  in  the  old 
suffocating  and  dead  haunts,  remembering  and  magnifying  their 
pleasant  experiences  only,  and  more  than  once  impell'd  to  jump 
ashore  before  it  is  too  late,  and  stay  where  our  fathers  stay'd, 
and  live  as  they  lived. 

May-be  I  am  non-literary  and  non-decorous  (let  me  at  least 
be  human,  and  pay  part  of  my  debt)  in  this  word  about  Tenny 
son.  I  want  him  to  realize  that  here  is  a  great  and  ardent  Na 
tion  that  absorbs  his  songs,  and  has  a  respect  and  affection  for 
him  personally,  as  almost  for  no  other  foreigner.  I  want  this 
word  to  go  to  the  old  man  at  Farringford  as  conveying  no  more 
than  the  simple  truth ;  and  that  truth  (a  little  Christmas  gift) 
no  slight  one  either.  I  have  written  impromptu,  and  shall  let  it 
all  go  at  that.  The  readers  of  more  than  fifty  millions  of  people 
in  the  New  World  not  only  owe  to  him  some  of  their  most 
agreeable  and  harmless  and  healthy  hours,  but  he  has  enter'd 
into  the  formative  influences  of  character  here,  not  only  in  the 
Atlantic  cities,  but  inland  and  far  West,  out  in  Missouri,  in 
Kansas,  and  away  in  Oregon,  in  farmer's  house  and  miner's 
cabin. 

Best  thanks,  anyhow,  to  Alfred  Tennyson — thanks  and  appre 
ciation  in  America's  name. 


SLANG  IN  AMERICA. 

VIEW'D  freely,  the  English  language  is  the  accretion  and 
growth  of  every  dialect,  race,  and  range  of  time,  and  is  both  the 
free  and  compacted  composition  of  all.  From  this  point  of 
view,  it  stands  for  Language  in  the  largest  sense,  and  is  really 
the  greatest  of  studies.  It  involves  so  much ;  is  indeed  a  sort 
of  universal  absorber,  combiner,  and  conqueror.  The  scope  of 
its  etymologies  is  the  scope  not  only  of  man  and  civilization,  but 
the  history  of  Nature  in  all  departments,  and  of  the  organic 
Universe,  brought  up  to  date ;  for  all  are  comprehended  in 
words,  and  their  backgrounds.  This  is  when  words  become  vi- 
taliz'd,  and  stand  for  things,  as  they  unerringly  and  soon  come 
to  do,  in  the  mind  that  enters  on  their  study  with  fitting  spirit, 
grasp,  and  appreciation. 

Slang,  profoundly  consider'd,  is  the  lawless  germinal  element, 
below  all  words  and  sentences,  and  behind  all  poetry,  and  proves 
a  certain  perennial  rankness  and  protestantism  in  speech.  As 
the  United  States  inherit  by  far  their  most  precious  possession — 
the  language  they  talk  and  write — from  the  Old  World,  under 
and  out  of  its  feudal  institutes,  I  will  allow  myself  to  borrow  a 
simile  even  of  those  forms  farthest  removed  from  American  De 
mocracy.  Considering  Language  then  as  some  mighty  potentate, 
into  the  majestic  audience-hall  of  the  monarch  ever  enters  a  per 
sonage  like  one  of  Shakspere's  clowns,  and  takes  position  there, 
and  plays  a  part  even  in  the  stateliest  ceremonies.  Such  is  Slang, 
or  indirection,  an  attempt  of  common  humanity  to  escape  from 
bald  literalism,  and  express  itself  inimitably,  which  in  highest 
walks  produces  poets  and  poems,  and  doubtless  in  pre-historic 
times  gave  the  start  to,  and  perfected,  the  whole  immense  tan 
gle  of  the  old  mythologies.  For,  curious  as  it  may  appear,  it  is 
strictly  the  same  impulse-source,  the  same  thing.  Slang,  too,  is 
the  wholesome  fermentation  or  eructation  of  those  processes 
eternally  active  in  language,  by  which  froth  and  specks  are 
thrown  up,  mostly  to  pass  away ;  though  occasionally  to  settle 
and  permanently  chrystallize. 

To  make  it  plainer,  it  is  certain  that  many  of  the  oldest  and 

solidest  words  we  use,  were  originally  generated  from  the  daring 

and  license  of  slang.    In  the  processes  of  word-formation,  myriads 

'die,  but  here  and  there  the  attempt  attracts  superior  meanings, 

(68) 


SLANG  IN  AMERICA. 


69 


becomes  valuable  and  indispensable,  and  lives  forever.  Thus  the 
term  right  means  literally  only  straight.  Wrong  primarily  meant 
twisted,  distorted.  Integrity  meant  oneness.  Spirit  meant 
breath,  or  flame.  A  supercilious  person  was  one  who  rais'd  his 
eyebrows.  To  insult  was  to  leap  against.  If  you  influenc* d  a  man, 
you  but  flow'd  into  him.  The  Hebrew  word  which  is  translated 
prophesy  meant  to  bubble  up  and  pour  forth  as  a  fountain.  The 
enthusiast  bubbles  up  with  the  Spirit  of  God  within  him,  and  it 
pours  forth  from  him  like  a  fountain.  The  word  prophecy  is 
misunderstood.  Many  suppose  that  it  is  limited  to  mere  pre 
diction  ;  that  is  but  the  lesser  portion  of  prophecy.  The  greater 
work  is  to  reveal  God.  Every  true  religious  enthusiast  is  a 
prophet. 

Language,  be  it  remember'd,  is  not  an  abstract  construction  of 
the  learn'd,  or  of  dictionary-makers,  but  is  something  arising  out 
of  the  work,  needs,  ties,  joys,  affections,  tastes,  of  long  genera 
tions  of  humanity,  and  has  its  bases  broad  and  low,  close  to  the 
ground.  Its  final  decisions  are  made  by  the  masses,  people  nearest 
the  concrete,  having  most  to  do  with  actual  land  and  sea.  It  im- 
permeates  all,  the  Past  as  well  as  the  Present,  and  is  the  grandest 
triumph  of  the  human  intellect.  "Those  mighty  works  of  art," 
says  Addington  Symonds,  "which  we  call  languages,  in  the  con 
struction  of  which  whole  peoples  unconsciously  co-operated,  the 
forms  of  which  were  determin'd  not  by  individual  genius,  but  by 
the  instincts  of  successive  generations,  acting  to  one  end,  inherent 
in  the  nature  of  the  race — Those  poems  of  pure  thought  and 
fancy,  cadenced  not  in  words,  but  in  living  imagery,  fountain- 
heads  of  inspiration,  mirrors  of  the  mind  of  nascent  nations, 
which  we  call  Mythologies — these  surely  are  more  marvellous  in 
their  infantine  spontaneity  than  any  more  mature  production 
of  the  races  which  evolv'd  them.  Yet  we  are  utterly  ignorant 
of  their  embryology ;  the  true  science  of  Origins  is  yet  in  its 
cradle." 

Daring  as  it  is  to  say  so,  in  the  growth  of  Language  it  is  cer 
tain  that  the  retrospect  of  slang  from  the  start  would  be  the  re 
calling  from  their  nebulous  conditions  of  all  that  is  poetical  in  the 
stores  of  human  utterance.  Moreover,  the  honest  delving,  as  of 
late  years,  by  the  German  and  British  workers  in  comparative 
philology,  has  pierc'd  and  dispers'd  many  of  the  falsest  bubbles 
of  centuries ;  and  will  disperse  many  more.  It  was  long  re 
corded  that  in  Scandinavian  mythology  the  heroes  in  the  Norse 
Paradise  drank  out  of  the  skulls  of  their  slain  enemies.  Later  in 
vestigation  proves  the  word  taken  for  skulls  to  mean  horns  of  beasts 
slain  in  the  hunt.  And  what  reader  had  not  been  exercis'd  over 
the  traces  of  that  feudal  custom,  by  which  seigneurs  warm'd 


y0  SLANG  IN  AMERICA. 

their  feet  in  the  bowels  of  serfs,  the  abdomen  being  open'd  for 
the  purpose?  It  now  is  made  to  appear  that  the  serf  was  only 
required  to  submit  his  unharm'd  abdomen  as  a  foot  cushion  while 
his  lord  supp'd,  and  was  required  to  chafe  the  legs  of  the  seigneur 
with  his  hands. 

It  is  curiously  in  embryons  and  childhood,  and  among  the 
illiterate,  we  always  find  the  groundwork  and  start,  of  this  great 
science,  and  its  noblest  products.  What  a  relief  most  people 
have  in  speaking  of  a  man  not  by  his  true  and  formal  name,  with 
a  "  Mister  "  to  it,  but  by  some  odd  or  homely  appellative.  The 
propensity  to  approach  a  meaning  not  directly  and  squarely,  but 
by  circuitous  styles  of  expression,  seems  indeed  a  born  quality  of 
the  common  people  everywhere,  evidenced  by  nick-names,  and  the 
inveterate  determination  of  the  masses  to  bestow  sub-titles,  some 
times  ridiculous,  sometimes  very  apt.  Always  among  the  soldiers 
during  the  Secession  War,  one  heard  of  "Little  Mac"  (Gen. 
McClellan),  or  of  "  Uncle  Billy  "  (Gen.  Sherman.)  "  The  old 
man  "  was,  of  course,  very  common.  Among  the  rank  and  file, 
both  armies,  it  was  very  general  to  speak  of  the  different  States 
they  came  from  by  their  slang  names.  Those  from  Maine  were 
call  d  Foxes;  New  Hampshire,  Granite  Boys;  Massachusetts, 
Bay  Staters ;  Vermont,  Green  Mountain  Boys ;  Rhode  Island, 
Gun  Flints ;  Connecticut,  Wooden  Nutmegs ;  New  York,  Knic 
kerbockers  ;  New  Jersey,  Clam  Catchers ;  Pennsylvania,  Logher 
Heads  ;  Delaware,  Muskrats  ;  Maryland,  Claw  Thumpers  ;  Vir 
ginia,  Beagles;  North  Carolina,  Tar  Boilers;  South  Carolina, 
Weasels  ;  Georgia,  Buzzards ;  Louisiana,  Creoles ;  Alabama,  Liz- 
zards;  Kentucky, -Corn  Crackers;  Ohio,  Buckeyes;  Michigan, 
Wolverines;  Indiana,  Hoosiers;  Illinois,  Suckers;  Missouri, 
Pukes;  Mississippi,  Tad  Poles;  Florida,  Fly  up  the  Creeks; 
Wisconsin,  Badgers;  Iowa,  Hawkeyes;  Oregon,  Hard  Cases.  In 
deed  I  am  not  sure  but  slang  names  have  more  than  once  made 
Presidents.  "Old  Hickory,"  (Gen.  Jackson)  is  one  case  in 
point.  "  Tippecanoe,  and  Tyler  too,"  another. 

I  find  the  same  rule  in  the  people's  conversations  everywhere. 
I  heard  this  among  the  men  of  the  city  horse-cars,  where  the  con 
ductor  is  often  call'd  a  "  snatcher  "  (i.  e.  because  his  characteris 
tic  duty  is  to  constantly  pull  or  snatch  the  bell-strap,  to  stop  or  go 
on.)  Two  young  fellows  are  having  a  friendly  talk,  amid 
which,  says  ist  conductor,  "  What  did  you  do  before  you  was  a 
snatcher?"  Answer  of  2d  conductor,  "Nail'd."  (Translation 
of  answer:  "Iwork'd  as  carpenter.")  What  is  a  "boom"?  says 
one  editor  to  another.  "Esteem'd  contemporary,"  says  the  other, 
"a  boom  is  a  bulge."  "  Barefoot  whiskey  "  is  the  Tennessee  name 
for  the  undiluted  stimulant.  In  the  slang  of  the  New  York  com- 


SLANG  IN  AMERICA.  7I 

mon  restaurant  waiters  a  plate  of  ham  and  beans  is  known  as 
•" stars  and  stripes,"  codfish  balls  as  "sleeve-buttons,"  and  hash 
as  "  mystery." 

The  Western  States  of  the  Union  are,  however,  as  may  be  sup 
posed,  the  special  areas  of  slang,  not  only  in  conversation,  but  in 
names  of  localities,  towns,  rivers,  etc.  A  late  Oregon  traveller 
says : 

"  On  your  way  to  Olympiaby  rail,  you  cross  a  river  called  the  Shookum- 
Chuck ;  your  train  stops  at  places  named  Newaukum,  Tumwater,  and  Toutle  ; 
and  if  you  seek  further  you  will  hear  of  whole  counties  labell'd  Wahkiakum, 
or  Snohomish,  or  Kitsar,  or  Klikatat;  and  Cowlitz,  Hookium,  and  Nenolelops 
greet  and  offend  you.  They  complain  in  Olympia  that  Washington  Territory 
gets  but  little  immigration  ;  but  what  wonder  ?  What  man,  having  the  whole 
American  continent  to  choose  from,  would  willingly  elate  his  letters  from  the 
county  of  Snohomish  or  bring  up  his  children  in  the  city  of  Nenolelops  ?  The 
village  of  Tumwater  is,  as  I  am  ready  to  bear  witness,  very  pretty  indeed  ;  but 
surely  an  emigrant  would  think  twice  before  he  establish'd  himself  eitker  there 
or  at  Toutle.  Seattle  is  sufficiently  barbarous  ;  Stelicoom  is  no  better  ;  and  I 
suspect  that  the  Northern  Pacific  Railroad  terminus  has  been  fixed  at  Tacoma 
because  it  is  one  of  the  few  places  on  Puget  Sound  whose  name  does  not  in 
spire  horror." 

Then  a  Nevada  paper  chronicles  the  departure  of  a  mining 
party  from  Reno :  "'The  toughest  set  of  roosters  that  ever  shook 
the  dust  off  any  town  left  Reno  yesterday  for  the  new  mining  dis 
trict  of  Cornucopia.  They  came  here  from  Virginia.  Among 
the  crowd  were  four  New  York  cock-fighters,  two  Chicago  mur 
derers,  three  Baltimore  bruisers,  one  Philadelphia  prize-fighter, 
four  San  Francisco  hoodlums,  three  Virginia  beats,  two  Union 
Pacific  roughs,  and  two  check  guerrillas."  Among  the  far-west 
newspapers,  have  been,  or  are,  The  Fairplay  (Colorado)  Flume  > 
The  Solid  Muldoon,  of  Ouray,  The  Tombstone  Epitaph,  of 
Nevada,  The  Jimplecute,  of  Texas,  and  The  Bazoo,  of  Missouri. 
Shirttail  Bend,  Whiskey  Flat,  Puppytown,  Wild  Yankee. Ranch, 
Squaw  Flat,  Rawhide  Ranch,  Loafer's  Ravine,  Squitch  Gulch, 
Toenail  Lake,  are  a  few  of  the  names  of  places  in  Butte  county, 
Cal. 

Perhaps  indeed  no  place  or  term  gives  more  luxuriant  illustra 
tions  of  the  fermentation  processes  I  have  mentioned,  and  their 
froth  and  specks,  than  those  Mississippi  and  Pacific  coast  regions, 
at  the  present  day.  Hasty  and  grotesque  as  are  some  of  the 
names,  others  are  of  an  appropriateness  and  originality  unsur 
passable.  This  applies  to  the  Indian  words,  which  are  often 
perfect.  Oklahoma  is  proposed  in  Congress  for  the  name  of  one 
of  our  new  Territories.  Hog-eye,  Lick-skillet,  Rake-pocket  and 
Steal-easy  are  the  names  of  some  Texan  towns.  Miss  Bremer 
found  among  the  aborigines  the  following  names :  Men 's,  Horn- 


72 


SLANG  AV  AMERICA. 


point;  Round-Wind  ;•  Stand-and-look-out;  The-Cloud-that-goes- 
aside;  Iron-toe;  Seek-the-sun  ;  Iron-flash;  Red-bottle;  White- 
spindle  ;  Black-dog  ;  Tvvo-feathers-of-honor  ;  Gray-grass  ;  Bushy- 
tail  ;  Thunder-face  ;  Go-on-the-burning-sod  ;  Spirits-of-the-dead. 
Women's,  Keep-the-fire  ;  Spiritual-woman  ;  Second-daughter-of- 
the-house  ;  Blue-bird. 

Certainly  philologists  have  not  given  enough  attention  to  this 
element  and  its  results,  which,  I  repeat,  can  probably  be  found 
working  every  where  to-day,  amid  modern  conditions,  with  as 
much  life  and  activity  as  in  far-back  Greece  or  India,  under  pre 
historic  ones.  Then  the  wit — the  rich  flashes  of  humor  and 
genius  and  poetry — darting  out  often  from  a  gang  of  laborers, 
railroad-men,  miners,  drivers  or  boatmen  !  How  often  have  I 
hover'd  at  the  edge  of  a  crowd  of  them,  to  hear  their  repartees 
and  impromptus  !  You  get  more  real  fun  from  half  an  hour 
with  them  than  from  the  books  of  all  "  the  American  humorists." 

The  science  of  language  has  large  and  close  analogies  in  geo 
logical  science,  with  its  ceaseless  evolution,  its  fossils,  and  its 
numberless  submerged  layers  and  hidden  strata,  the  infinite  go- 
before  of  the  present.  Or,  perhaps  Language  is  more  like  some 
vast  living  body,  or  perennial  body  of  bodies.  And  slang  not 
only  brings  the  first  feeders  of  it,  but  is  afterward  the  start  of 
fancy,  imagination  and  humor,  breathing  into  its  nostrils  the 
breath  of  life. 


AN  INDIAN  BUREAU  REMIN 
ISCENCE. 

AFTER  the  close  of  the  Secession  War  in  1865,  I  work'd  sev 
eral  months  (until  Mr.  Harlan  turn'd  me  out  for  having  written 
•'Leaves  of  Grass")  in  the  Interior  Department  at  Washington, 
in  the  Indian  Bureau.  Along  this  time  there  came  to  see  their 
Great  Father  an  unusual  number  of  aboriginal  visitors,  delegations,, 
for  treaties,  settlement  of  lands,  &c. — some  young  or  middle- 
aged,  but  mainly  old  men,  from  the  West,  North,  and  occasion 
ally  from  the  South — parties  of  from  five  to  twenty  each — the 
most  wonderful  proofs  of  what  Nature  can  produce,  (the  survival 
of  the  fittest,  no  doubt — all  the  frailer  samples  dropt,  sorted  out 
by  death) — as  if  to  show  how  the  earth  and  woods,  the  attrition 
of  storms  and  elements,  and  the  exigencies  of  life  at  first  hand, 
can  train  and  fashion  men,  indeed  chiefs,  in  heroic  massiveness, 
imperturbability,  muscle,  and  that  last  and  highest  beauty  con 
sisting  of  strength — the  full  exploitation  and  fruitage  of  a  human 
identity,  not  from  the  culmination-points  of  "  culture"  and  arti 
ficial  civilization,  but  tallying  our  race,  as  it  were,  with  giant, 
vital,  gnarl'd,  enduring  trees,  or  monoliths  of  separate  hardiest 
rocks,  and  humanity  holding  its  own  with  the  best  of  the  said 
trees  or  rocks,  and  outdoing  them. 

There  were  Omahas,  Poncas,  Winnebagoes,  Cheyennes,  Na- 
vahos,  Apaches,  and  many  others.  Let  me  give  a  running  ac 
count  of  what  I  see  and  hear  through  one  of  these  conference 
collections  at  the  Indian  Bureau,  going  back  to  the  present  tense. 
Every  head  and  face  is  impressive,  even  artistic  ;  Nature  redeems 
herself  out  of  her  crudest  recesses.  Most  have  red  paint  on  their 
cheeks,  however,  or  some  other  paint.  ("  Little  Hill "  makes  the 
opening  speech,  which  the  interpreter  translates  by  scraps.) 
Many  wear  head  tires  of  gaudy-color'd  braid,  wound  around 
thickly — some  with  circlets  of  eagles'  feathers.  Necklaces  of 
bears'  claws  are  plenty  around  their  necks.  Most  of  the  chiefs 
are  wrapt  in  large  blankets  of  the  brightest  scarlet.  Two  or  three 
have  blue,  and  I  see  one  black.  (A  wise  man  call'd  "the 
Flesh"  now  makes  a  short  speech,  apparently  asking  something. 
Indian  Commissioner  Dole  answers  him,  and  the  interpreter- 
translates  in  scraps  again.)  All  the  principal  chiefs  have  toma- 

(73) 


74 


AN  INDIAN  BUREAU  REMINISCENCE. 


hawks  or  hatchets,  some  of  them  very  richly  ornamented  and 
costly.  Plaid  shirts  are  to  be  observ'd — none  too  clean.  Now 
a  tall  fellow,  "Hole-in-the-Day,"  is  speaking.  He  has  a  copious 
head-dress  composed  of  feathers  and  narrow  ribbon,  under  which 
appears  a  countenance  painted  all  over  a  bilious  yellow.  Let  us 
note  this  young  chief.  For  all  his  paint,  "  Hole-in-the-Day"  is 
a  handsome  Indian,  mild  and  calm,  dress'd  in  drab  buckskin  leg 
gings,  dark  gray  surtout,  and  a  soft  black  hat.  His  costume  will 
bear  full  observation,  and  even  fashion  would  accept  him.  His 
apparel  is  worn  loose  and  scant  enough  to  show  his  superb 
physique,  especially  in  neck,  chest,  and  legs.  ("The  Apollo 
Belvidere  !"  was  the  involuntary  exclamation  of  a  famous  Euro 
pean  artist  when  he  first  saw  a  full-grown  young  Choctaw.) 

One  of  the  red  visitors — a  wild,  lean-looking  Indian,  the  one 
in  the  black  woolen  wrapper — has  an  empty  buffalo  head,  with 
the  horns  on,  for  his  personal  surmounting.  I  see  a  markedly 
Bourbonish  countenance  among  the  chiefs — (it  is  not  very  un 
common  among  them,  I  am  told.)  Most  of  them  avoided  rest 
ing  on  chairs  during  the  hour  of  their  "talk"  in  the  Commis 
sioner's  office  ;  they  would  sit  around  on  the  floor,  leaning  against 
something,  or  stand  up  by  the  walls,  partially  wrapt  in  their 
blankets.  Though  some  of  the  young  fellows  were,  as  I  have  said, 
•magnificent  and  beautiful  animals,  I  think  the  palm  of  unique 
picturesqueness,  in  body,  limb,  physiognomy,  etc.,  was  borne  by 
the  old  or  elderly  chiefs,  and  the  wise  men. 

My  here-alluded-to  experience  in  the  Indian  Bureau  produced 
-one  very  definite  conviction,  as  follows :  There  is  something 
about  these  aboriginal  Americans,  in  their  highest  characteristic 
representations,  essential  traits,  and  the  ensemble  of  their  physique 
and  physiognomy — something  very  remote,  very  lofty,  arousing 
comparisons  with  our  own  civilized  ideals — something  that  our 
literature,  portrait  painting,  etc.,  have  never  caught,  and  that  will 
almost  certainly  never  be  transmitted  to  the  future,  even  as  a  re 
miniscence.  No  biographer,  no  historian,  no  artist,  has  grasp'd 
it — perhaps  could  not  grasp  it.  It  is  so  different,  so  far  outside 
our  standards  of  eminent  humanity.  Their  feathers,  paint — even 
the  empty  buffalo  skull — did  not,  to  say  the  least,  seem  any  more 
ludicrous  to  me  than  many  of  the  fashions  I  have  seen  in  civilized 
society.  I  should  not  apply  the  word  savage  (at  any  rate,  in  the 
usual  sense)  as  a  leading  word  in  the  description  of  those  great 
aboriginal  specimens,  of  whom  I  certainly  saw  many  of  the  best. 
There  were  moments,  as  I  look'd  at  them  or  studied  them,  when 
•our  own  exemplification  of  personality,  dignity,  heroic  presenta 
tion  anyhow  (as  in  the  conventions  of  society,  or  even  in  the  ac 
cepted  poems  and  plays,)  seem'd  sickly,  puny,  inferior. 


AN  INDIAN  BUREAU  REMINISCENCE. 


75 


The  interpreters,  agents  of  the  Indian  Department,  or  other 
whites  accompanying  the  bands,  in  positions  of  responsibility, 
were  always  interesting  to  me ;  I  had  many  talks  with  them. 
Occasionally  I  would  go  to  the  hotels  where  the  bands  were  quar- 
ter'd,  and  spend  an  hour  or  two  informally.  Of  course  we  could 
not  have  much  conversation — though  (through  the  interpreters) 
more  of  this  than  might  be  supposed — sometimes  quite  animated 
and  significant.  I  had  the  good  luck  to  be  invariably  receiv'd 
and  treated  by  all  of  them  in  their  most  cordial  manner. 


[Letter  to  W.  W.  from  an  artist,  B.  H.,  who  has  been  much  .among  the 
American  Indians:] 

"I  have  just  receiv'd  your  little  paper  on  the  Indian  delega 
tions.  In  the  fourth  paragraph  you  say  that  there  is  something 
about  the  essential  traits  of  our  aborigines  which  'will  almost 
certainly  never  be  transmitted  to  the  future.'  If  I  am  so  for 
tunate  as  to  regain  my  health  I  hope  to  weaken  the  force  of  that 
statement,  at  least  in  so  far  as  my  talent  and  training  will  per 
mit.  I  intend  to  spend  some  years  among  them,  and  shall  en 
deavor  to  perpetuate  on  canvas  some  of  the  finer  types,  both  men 
and  women,  and  some  of  the  characteristic  features  of  their  life. 
It  will  certainly  be  well  worth  the  while.  My  artistic  enthusiasm 
was  never  so  thoroughly  stirr'd  up  as  by  the  Indians.  They  cer 
tainly  have  more  of  beauty,  dignity  and  nobility  mingled  with 
their  own  wild  individuality,  than  any  of  the  other  indigenous 
types  of  man.  Neither  black  nor  Afghan,  Arab  nor  Malay  (and 
I  know  them  all  pretty  well)  can  hold  a  candle  to  the  Indian. 
All  of  the  other  aboriginal  types  seem  to  be  more  or  less  dis 
torted  from  the  model  of  perfect  human  form — as  we  know  it — 
-the  blacks,  thin-hipped,  with  bulbous  limbs,  not  well  mark'd ; 
the  Arabs  large-jointed,  &c.  But  I  have  seen  many  a  young  In 
dian  as  perfect  in  form  and  feature  as  a  Greek  statue — very  dif 
ferent  from  a  Greek  statue,  of  course,  but  as  satisfying  to  the 
artistic  perceptions  and  demand. 

"  And  the  worst,  or  perhaps  the  best  of  it  all  is  that  it  will  re- 
•quire  an  artist — and  a  good  one — to  record  the  real  facts  and 
impressions.  Ten  thousand  photographs  would  not  have  the 
value  of  one  really  finely  felt  painting.  Color  is  all-important. 
No  one  but  an  artist  knows  how  much.  An  Indian  is  only  half 
an  Indian  without  the  blue-black  hair  and  the  brilliant  eyes  shin 
ing  out  of  the  wonderful  dusky  ochre  and  rose  complexion." 


SOME  DIARY  NOTES  AT 
RANDOM. 

NEGRO  SLAVES  IN  NEW  YORK. — I  can  myself  almost  remember 
negro  slaves  in  New  York  State,  as  my  grandfather  and  great 
grandfather  (at  West  Hills,  Suffolk  County,  New  York)  own'd  a 
number.  The  hard  labor  of  the  farm  was  mostly  done  by  them, 
and  on  the  floor  of  the  big  kitchen,  toward  sundown,  would  be 
squatting  a  circle  of  twelve  or  fourteen  "  pickaninnies,"  eating 
their  supper  of  pudding  (Indian  corn  mush)  and  milk.  A  friend 
of  my  grandfather,  named  Wortman,  of  Oyster  Bay,  died  in 
1810,  leaving  ten  slaves.  Jeanette  Tread  well,  the  last  of  them, 
died  suddenly  in  Flushing  last  Summer  (1884,)  at  the  age  of 
ninety-four  years.  I  remember  "  old  Mose,"  one  of  the  liberated 
West  Hills  slaves,  well.  He  was  very  genial,  correct,  manly, 
and  cute,  and  a  great  friend  of  my  childhood. 

CANADA  NIGHTS. — Late  in  August. — Three  wondrous  nights. 
Effects  of  moon,  clouds,  stars,  and  night-sheen,  never  surpass'd. 
I  am  out  every  night,  enjoying  all.  The  sunset  begins  it.  (I 
have  said  already  how  long  evening  lingers  here.)  The  moon, 
an  hour  high  just  after  eight,  is  past  her  half,  and  looks  somehow 
more  like  a  human  face  up  there  than  ever  before.  As  it  grows 
later,  we  have  such  gorgeous  and  broad  cloud-effects,  with  Luna's 
tawny  halos,  silver  edgings — great  fleeces,  depths  of  blue-black  in 
patches,  and  occasionally  long,  low  bars  hanging  silently  a  while, 
and  then  gray  bulging  masses  rolling  along  stately,  sometimes  in 
long  procession.  The  moon  travels  in  Scorpion  to-night,  and 
dims  all  the  stars  of  that  constellation  except  fiery  Antares,  who- 
keeps  on  shining  just  to  the  big  one's  side. 

COUNTRY  DAYS  AND  NIGHTS. — Sept.  30,  '82,  4.30  A.  M. — I  am 
down  in  Camden  County,  New  Jersey,  at  the  farm-house  of  the 
Staffords — have  been  looking  a  long  while  at  the  comet — have  in 
my  tinje  seen  longer-tail'd  ones,  but  never  one  so  pronounc'd  in 
cometary  character,  and  so  spectral-fierce — so  like  some  great, 
pale,  living  monster  of  the  air  or  sea.  The  atmosphere  and  sky, 
an  hour  or  so  before  sunrise,  so  cool,  still,  translucent,  give  the 
(76) 


SOME  DIARY  NOTES  AT  RANDOM.  77 

whole  apparition  to  great  advantage.  It  is  low  in  the  east.  The 
head  shows  about  as  big  as  an  ordinary  good-sized  saucer — is  a 
perfectly  round  and  defined  disk — the  tail  some  sixty  or  seventy 
feet — not  a  stripe,  but  quite  broad,  and  gradually  expanding. 
Impress'd  with  the  silent,  inexplicably  emotional  sight,  I  linger 
and  look  till  all  begins  to  weaken  in  the  break  of  day. 

October  2. — The  third  day  of  mellow,  delicious,  sunshiny 
weather.  I  am  writing  this  in  the  recesses  of  the  old  woods,  my 
seat  on  a  big  pine  log,  my  back  against  a  tree.  Am  down  here 
a  few  days  for  a  change,  to  bask  in  the  Autumn  sun,  to  idle  lus 
ciously  and  simply,  and  to  eat  hearty  meals,  especially  my  break 
fast.  Warm  mid-days — the  other  hours  of  the  twenty-four  de 
lightfully  fresh  and  mild — cool  evenings,  and  early  mornings 
perfect.  The  scent  of  the  woods,  and  the  peculiar  aroma  of  a 
great  yet  unreap'd  maize-field  near  by — the  white  butterflies  in 
every  direction  by  day — the  golden-rod,  the  wild  asters,  and 
sunflowers — the  song  of  the  katydid  all  night.  . 

Every  day  in  Cooper's  Woods,  enjoying  simple  existence  and 
the  passing  hours — taking  short  walks — exercising  arms  and  chest 
with  the  saplings,  or  my  voice  with  army  songs  or  recitations. 
A  perfect  week  for  weather ;  seven  continuous  days  bright  and 
dry  and  cool  and  sunny.  The  nights  splendid,  with  full  moon — 
about  10  the  grandest  of  star-shows  up  in  the  east  and  south, 
Jupiter,  Saturn,  Capella,  Aldebaran,  and  great  Orion.  Am  feel 
ing  pretty  well — am  outdoors  most  of  the  time,  absorbing  the 
days  and  nights  all  I  can. 

CENTRAL  PARK  NOTES. — American  Society  from  a  Park  Police- 
man's  Point  of  View, — Am  in  New  York  City,  upper  part — visit 
Central  Park  almost  every  day  (and  have  for  the  last  three  weeks) 
off  and  on,  taking  observations  or  short  rambles,  and  sometimes 
riding  around.  I  talk  quite  a  good  deal  with  one  of  the  Park 
policemen,  C.  C.,  up  toward  the  Ninetieth  street  entrance.  One 
day  in  particular  I  got  him  a-going,  and  it  proved  deeply  inter 
esting  to  me.  Our  talk  floated  into  sociology  and  politics.  I 
was  curious  to  find  how  these  things  appear' d  on  their  sut  faces  to 
my  friend,  for  he  plainly  possess'd  sharp  wits  and  good  nature, 
and  had  been  seeing,  for  years,  broad  streaks  of  humanity  some 
what  out  of  my  latitude.  I  found  that  as  he  took  such  appear 
ances  the  inward  caste-spirit  of  European  "  aristocracy  "  pervaded 
rich  America,  with  cynicism  and  artificiality  at  the  fore.  Of  the 
bulk  of  official  persons,  Executives,  Congressmen,  Legislators, 
Aldermen,  Department  heads,  etc.,  etc.,  or  the  candidates  for 
those  positions,  nineteen  in  twenty,  in  the  policeman's  judgment, 
were  just  players  in  a  game.  Liberty,  Equality,  Union,  and  all 


78  SOME  DIARY  NOTES  AT  HAW  DOM. 

the  grand  words  of  the  Republic,  were,  in  their  mouths,  but  lures,, 
decoys,  chisel'd  likenesses  of  dead  wood,  to  catch  the  masses. 
Of  fine  afternoons,  along  the  broad  tracks  of  the  Park,  for  many 
years,  had  swept  by  my  friend,  as  he  stood  on  guard,  the  carri 
ages,  etc.,  of  American  Gentility,  not  by  dozens  and  scores,  but 
by  hundreds  and  thousands.  Lucky  brokers,  capitalists,  contrac 
tors,  grocery-men,  successful  political  strikers,  rich  butchers,  dry 
goods'  folk,  &c.  And  on  a  large  proportion  of  these  vehicles, 
on  panels  or  horse-trappings,  were  conspicuously  borne  heraldic 
family  crests.  (Can  this  really  be  true?)  In  wish  and  willing 
ness  (and  if  that  were  so,  what  matter  about  the  reality?)  titles 
of  nobility,  with  a  court  and  spheres  fit  for  the  capitalists,  the 
highly  educated,  and  the  carriage-riding  classes — to  fence  them 
off  from  "the  common  people" — were  the  heart's  desire  of  the 
"good  society"  of  our  great  cities — aye,  of  North  and  South. 

So  much  for  my  police  friend's  speculations — which  rather  took 
me  aback — and  which  I  have  thought  I  would  just  print  as  he  gave 
them  (as  a  doctor  records  symptoms.) 

PLATE  GLASS  NOTES. — St.  Louis,  Missouri,  November,  '79. — 
What  do  you  think  I  find  manufactur'd  out  here — and  of  a  kind 
the  clearest  and  largest,  best,  and  the  most  finish'd  and  luxurious 
in  the  world — and  with  ample  demand  for  it  too  ?  Plate  glass  ! 
One  would  suppose  that  was  the  last  dainty  outcome  of  an  old, 
almost  effete-growing  civilization  ;  and  yet  here  it  is,  a  few  miles 
from  St.  Louis,  on  a  charming  little  river,  in  the  wilds  of  the 
West,  near  the  Mississippi.  I  went  down  that  way  to-day  by  the 
Iron  Mountain  Railroad — was  switch'd  off  on  a  side-track  four 
miles  through  woods  and  ravines,  to  Swash  Creek,  so-call'd,  and 
there  found  Crystal  City,  and  immense  Glass  Works,  built  (and 
evidently  built  to  stay)  right  in  the  pleasant  rolling  forest.  Spent 
most  of  the  day,  and  examin'd  the  inexhaustible  and  peculiar  sand 
the  glass  is  made  of — the  original  whity-gray  stuff  in  the  banks — 
saw  the  melting  in  the  pots  (a  wondrous  process,  a  real  poem) — 
saw  the  delicate  preparation  the  clay  material  undergoes  for  these 
great  pots  (it  has  to  be  kneaded  finally  by  human  feet,  no  ma 
chinery  answering,  and  I  watch'd  the  picturesque  bare-legged 
Africans  treading  it) — saw  the  molten  stuff  (a  great  mass  of  a 
glowing  pale  yellow  color)  taken  out  of  the  furnaces  (I  shall  never 
forget  that  Pot,  shape,  color,  concomitants,  more  beautiful  than 
any  antique  statue,)  pass'd  into  the  adjoining  casting-room,  lifted 
by  powerful  machinery,  pour'd  out  on  its  bed  (all  glowing,  a 
newer,  vaster  study  for  colorists,  indescribable,  a  pale  red-tinged 
yellow,  of  tarry  consistence,  all  lambent,)  roll'd  by  a  heavy  roller 
into  rough  plate  glass,  I  should  say  ten  feet  by  fourteen,  then  ra- 


SOME  DIARY  NOTES  AT  RANDOM.  79, 

pidly  shov'd  into  the  annealing  oven,  which  stood  ready  for  it. 
The  polishing  and  grinding  rooms  afterward — the  great  glass  slabs,, 
hundreds  of  them,  on  their  flat  beds,  and  the  see-saw  music  of 
the  steam  machinery  constantly  at  work  polishing  them — the- 
myriads  of  human  figures  (the  works  employ'd  400  men)  moving 
about,  with  swart  arms  and  necks,  and  no  superfluous  clothing — 
the  vast,  rude  halls,  with  immense  play  of  shifting  shade,  and 
slow-moving  currents  of  smoke  and  steam,  and  shafts  of  light, 
sometimes  sun,  striking  in  from  above  with  effects  that  would 
have  fill'd  Michel  Angelo  with  rapture. 

Coming  back  to  St.  Louis  this  evening,  at  sundown,  and  for 
over  an  hour  afterward,  we  follow'd  the  Mississippi,  close  by  its, 
western  bank,  giving  me  an  ampler  view  of  the  river,  and  with 
effects  a  little  different  from  any  yet.  In  the  eastern  sky  hung 
the  planet  Mars,  just  up,  and  of  a  very  clear  and  vivid  yellow. 
It  was  a  soothing  and  pensive  hour — the  spread  of  the  river  off 
there  in  the  half-light — the  glints  of  the  down-bound  steamboats, 
plodding  along — and  that  yellow  orb  (apparently  twice  as  large 
and  significant  as  usual)  above  the  Illinois  shore.  (All  along,, 
these  nights,  nothing  can  exceed  the  calm,  fierce,  golden,  glisten 
ing  domination  of  Mars  over  all  the  stars  in  the  sky.) 

As  we  came  nearer  St.  Louis,  the  night  having  well  set  in,  I 
saw  some  (to  me)  novel  effects  in  the  zinc  smelting  establishments, 
the  tall  chimneys  belching  flames  at  the  top,  while  inside  through 
the  openings  at  the  facades  of  the  great  tanks  burst  forth  (in 
regular  position)  hundreds  of  fierce  tufts  of  a  peculiar  blue  (or 
green)  flame,  of  a  purity  and  intensity,  like  electric  lights — illu 
minating  not  only  the  great  buildings  themselves,  but  far  and  near 
outside,  like  hues  of  the  aurora  borealis,  only  more  vivid.  (So 
that — remembering  the  Pot  from  the  crystal  furnace — my  jaunt 
seem'd  to  give  me  new  revelations  in  the  color  line.) 


SOME  WAR  MEMORANDA. 

JOTTED    DOWN    AT    THE    TIME. 

I  FIND  this  incident  in  my  notes  (I  suppose  from  "  chinning" 
in  hospital  with  some  sick  or  wounded  soldier  who  knew  of  it) : 

When  Kilpatrick  and  his  forces.were  cut  off  at  Brandy  Station 
(last  of  September,  '63,  or  thereabouts,)  and  the  bands  struck  up 
<(  Yankee  Doodle,"  there  were  not  cannon  enough  in  the  Southern 
Confederacy  to  keep  him  and  them  "  in."  It  was  when  Meade 
fell  back.  K.  had  his  large  cavalry  division  (perhaps  5000  men,) 
but  the  rebs,  in  superior  force,  had  surrounded  them.  Things 
look'd  exceedingly  desperate.  K.  had  two  fine  bands,  and  order'd 
them  up  immediately;  they  join'd  and  play'd  "Yankee  Doodle" 
with  a  will !  It  went  through  the  men  like  lightning — but  to  in 
spire,  not  to  unnerve.  Every  man  seem'd  a  giant.  They  charged 
like  a  cyclone,  and  cut  their  way  out.  Their  loss  was  but  20.  It 
was  about  two  in  the  afternoon. 

WASHINGTON   STREET   SCENES. 

April  7,  1864. — WALKING  DOWN  PENNSYLVANIA  AVENUE. — 
Warmish  forenoon,  after  the  storm  of  the  past  few  days.  I  see, 
passing  up,  in  the  broad  space  between  the  curbs,  a  big  squad  of 
a  couple  of  hundred  conscripts,  surrounded  by  a  strong  cordon 
of  arm'd  guards,  and  others  interspers'd  between  the  ranks.  The 
government  has  learn'd  caution  from  its  experiences ;  there  are 
many  hundreds  of  "  bounty  jumpers,"  and  already,  as  I  am  told, 
eighty  thousand  deserters  !  Next  (also  passing  up  the  Avenue,)  a 
cavalry  company,  young,  but  evidently  well  drill' d  and  service- 
harden'd  men.  Mark  the  upright  posture  in  their  saddles,  the 
bronz'd  and  bearded  young  faces,  the  easy  swaying  to  the  motions 
of  the  horses,  and  the  carbines  by  their  right  knees ;  handsome 
and  reckless,  some  eighty  of  them,  riding  with  rapid  gait,  clatter 
ing  along.  Then  the  tinkling  bells  of  passing  cars,  the  many 
shops  (some  with  large  show-windows,  some  with  swords,  straps 
for  the  shoulders  of  different  ranks,  hat-cords  with  acorns,  or  other 
insignia,)  the  military  patrol  marching  along,  with  the  orderly 
or  second-lieutenant  stopping  different  ones  to  examine  passes — 
the  forms,  the  faces,  all  sorts  crowded  together,  the  worn  and  pale, 
the  pleas'd,  some  on  their  way  to  the  railroad  depot  going  home, 
(80) 


SOME   WAR  MEMORANDA.  8* 

the  cripples,  the  darkeys,  the  long  trains  of  government  wagons, 
or  the  sad  strings  of  ambulances  conveying  wounded — the  many 
officers'  horses  tied  in  front  of  the  drinking  or  oyster  saloons,  or 
held  by  black  men  or  boys,  or  orderlies. 

THE    IQ5TH   PENNSYLVANIA. 

Tuesday,  Aug.  i,  1865. — About  3  o'clock  this  afternoon  (sun 
broiling  hot)  in  Fifteenth  street,  by  the  Treasury  building,  a  large 
and  handsome  regiment,  i95th  Pennsylvania,  were  marching 
by — as  it  happen 'd,  receiv'd  orders  just  here  to  halt  and  break 
ranks,  so  that  they  might  rest  themselves  awhile.  I  thought  I 
never  saw  a  finer  set  of  men — so  hardy,  candid,  bright  American 
looks,  all  weather-beaten,  and  with  warm  clothes.  Every  man 
was  home-born.  My  heart  was  much  drawn  toward  them.  They 
seem'd  very  tired,  red,  and  streaming  with  sweat.  It  is  a  one- 
year  regiment,  mostly  from  Lancaster  County,  Pa.  ;  have  been  in 
Shenandoah  Valley.  On  halting,  the  men  unhitch'd  their  knap 
sacks,  and  sat  down  to  rest  themselves.  Some  lay  flat  on  the 
pavement  or  under  trees.  The  fine  physical  appearance  of  the 
whole  body  was  remarkable.  Great,  very  great,  must  be  the  State 
where  such  young  farmers  and  mechanics  are  the  practical  aver 
age.  I  went  around  for  half  an  hour  and  talk'd  with  several  of 
them,  sometimes  squatting  down  with  the  groups. 

LEFT-HAND    WRITING    BY    SOLDIERS. 

April  30,  1866. — Here  is  a  single  significant  fact,  from  which 
one  may  judge  of  the  character  of  the  American  soldiers  in  this 
just  concluded  war :  A  gentleman  in  New  York  City,  a  while 
since,  took  it  into  his  head  to  collect  specimens  of  writing  from 
soldiers  who  had  lost  their  right  hands  in  battle,  and  afterwards 
learn 'd  to  use  the  left.  He  gave  public  notice  of  his  desire,  and 
offer' d  prizes  for  the  best  of  these  specimens.  Pretty  soon  they 
began  to  come  in,  and  by  the  time  specified  for  awarding  the 
prizes  three  hundred  samples  of  such  left-hand  writing  by  maim'd 
soldiers  had  arrived. 

I  have  just  been  looking  over  some  of  this  writing.  A  great 
many  of  the  specimens  are  written  in  a  beautiful  manner.  All 
are  good.  The  writing  in  nearly  all  cases  slants  backward  instead 
of  forward.  One  piece  of  writing,  from  a  soldier  who  had  lost 
both  arms,  was  made  by  holding  the  pen  in  his  mouth. 

CENTRAL   VIRGINIA    IN    '64. 

Culpeper,  where  I  am  stopping,  looks  like  a  place  of  two  or 
three   thousand    inhabitants.     Must   be   one  of  the  pleasantest 
6 


82  SOME  WAR  MEMORANDA. 

towns  in  Virginia.  Even  now,  dilapidated  fences,  all  broken 
down,  windows  out,  it  has  the  remains  of  much  beauty.  I  am 
standing  on  an  eminence  overlooking  the  town,  though  within 
its  limits.  To  the  west  the  long  Blue  Mountain  range  is  very 
plain,  looks  quite  near,  though  from  30  to  50  miles  distant,  with 
some  gray  splashes  of  snow  yet  visible.  The  show  is  varied  and 
fascinating.  I  see  a  great  eagle  up  there  in  the  air  sailing  with 
pois'd  wings,  quite  low.  Squads  of  red  legged  soldiers  are  drill 
ing  ;  I  suppose  some  of  the  new  men  of  the  Brooklyn  i4th  ;  they 
march  off  presently  with  muskets  on  their  shoulders.  In  another 
place,  just  below  me,  are  some,  soldiers  squaring  off  logs  to  build 
a  shanty — chopping  away,  and  the  noise  of  the  axes  sounding 
sharp.  I  hear  the  bellowing,  unmusical  screech  of  the  mule.  I 
mark  the  thin  blue  smoke  rising  from  camp  fires.  Just  below  me 
is  a  collection  of  hospital  tents,  with  a  yellow  flag  elevated  on  a 
stick,  and  moving  languidly  in  the  breeze.  Two  discharged  men 
(I  know  them  both)  are  just  leaving.  One  is  so  weak  he  can 
hardly  walk ;  the  other  is  stronger,  and  carries  his  comrade's 
musket.  They  move  slowly  along  the  muddy  road  toward  the 
depot.  The  scenery  is  full  of  breadth,  and  spread  on  the  most 
generous  scale  (everywhere  in  Virginia  this  thought  fiU'd.me.) 
The  sights,  the  scenes,  the  groups,  have  been  varied  and  pictur 
esque  here  beyond  description,  and  remain  so. 

I  heard  the  men  return  in  force  the  other  night — heard  the 
shouting,  and  got  up  and  went  out  to  hear  what  was  the  matter. 
That  night  scene  of  so  many  hundred  tramping  steadily  by, 
through  the  mud  (some  big  flaring  torches  of  pine  knots,)  I  shall 
never  forget.  I  like  to  go  to  the  paymaster's  tent,  and  watch  the 
men  getting  paid  off.  Some  have  furloughs,  and  start  at  once  for 
home,  sometimes  amid  great  chaffing  and  blarneying.  There  is 
every  day  the  sound  of  the  wood-chopping  axe,  and  the  plentiful 
sight  of  negroes,  crows,  and  mud.  I  note  large  droves  and  pens 
of  cattle.  The  teamsters  have  camps  of  their  own,  and  I  go  often 
among  them.  The  officers  occasionally  invite  me  to  dinner  or 
supper  at  headquarters.  The  fare  is  plain,  but  you  get  something 
good  to  drink,  and  plenty  of  it.  Gen.  Meade  is  absent ;  Sedg- 
wick  is  in  command. 

PAYING   THE    1ST   U.    S.    C.    T. 

One  of  my  war  time  reminiscences  comprises  the  quiet  side 
scene  of  a  visit  I  made  to  the  First  Regiment  U.  S.  Color'd  Troops, 
at  their  encampment,  and  on  the  occasion  of  their  first  paying 
off,  July  n,  1863.  Though  there  is  now  no  difference  of  opinion 
worth  mentioning,  there  was  a  powerful  opposition  to  enlisting 
blacks  during  the  earlier  years  of  the  secession  war.  Even  then,. 


SOME   WAR  MEMORANDA.  83 

however,  they  had  their  champions.  "That  the  color'd  race," 
said  a  good  authority,  "  is  capable  of  military  training  and  effi 
ciency,  is  demonstrated  by  the  testimony  of  numberless  witnesses, 
and  by  the  eagerness  display' d  in  the  raising,  organizing,  and 
drilling  of  African  troops.  Few  white  regiments  make  a  better 
appearance  on  parade  than  the  First  and  Second  Louisiana  Native 
Guards.  The  same  remark  is  true  of  other  color'd  regiments. 
At  Milliken's  Bend,  at  Vicksburg,  at  Port  Hudson,  on  Morris 
Island,  and  wherever  tested,  they  have  exhibited  determin'd 
bravery,  and  compell'd  the  plaudits  alike  of  the  thoughtful  and 
thoughtless  soldiery.  During  the  siege  of  Port  Hudson  the  ques 
tion  was  often  ask'd  those  who  beheld  their  resolute  charges,  how 
the  'niggers'  behav'd  under  fire;  and  without  exception  the  an 
swer  was  complimentary  to  them.  'O,  tip-top!'  'first-rate!' 
'  bully  !  '  were  the  usual  replies."  But  I  did  not  start  out  to  argue 
the  case — only  to  give  my  reminiscence  literally,  as  jotted  on  the 
spot  at  the  time. 

I  write  this  on  Mason's  (otherwise  Analostan)  Island,  under 
the  fine  shade  trees  of  an  old  white  stucco  house,  with  big  rooms; 
the  white  stucco  house,  originally  a  fine  country  seat  (tradition 
says  the  famous  Virginia  Mason,  author  of  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law,  was  born  here. )  I  reach'd  the  spot  from  my  Washington 
quarters  by  ambulance  up  Pennsylvania  avenue,  through  George 
town,  across  the  Aqueduct  bridge,  and  around  through  a  cut  and 
winding  road,  with  rocks  and  many  bad  gullies  not  lacking. 
After  reaching  the  island,  we  get  presently  in  the  midst  of  the 
camp  of  the  ist  Regiment  U.  S.  C.  T.  The  tents  look  clean 
and  good  ;  indeed,  altogether,  in  locality  especially,  the  pleasant- 
est  camp  I  have  yet  seen.  The  spot  is  umbrageous,  high  and  dry, 
with  distant  sounds  of  the  city,  and  the  puffing  steamers  of  the 
Potomac,  up  to  Georgetown  and  back  again.  Birds  are  singing 
in  the  trees,  the  warmth  is  endurable  here  in  this  moist  shade, 
with  the  fragrance  and  freshness.  A  hundred  rods  across  is 
Georgetown.  The  river  between  is  swell 'd  and  muddy  from  the 
late  rains  up  country.  So  quiet  here,  yet  full  of  vitality, 
all  around  in  the  far  distance  glimpses,  as  I  sweep  my  eye,  of 
hills,  verdure-clad,  and  with  plenteous  trees ;  right  where  I  sit, 
locust,  sassafras,  spice,  and  many  other  trees,  a  few  with  huge 
parasitic  vines ;  just  at  hand  the  banks  sloping  to  the  river,  wild 
with  beautiful,  free  vegetation,  superb  weeds,  better,  in  their 
natural  growth  and  forms,  than  the  best  garden.  Lots  of 
luxuriant  grape  vines  and  trumpet  flowers;  the  river  flowing  far 
down  in  the  distance. 

Now  the  paying  is  to  begin.  The  Major  (paymaster)  with  his 
clerk  seat  themselves  at  a  table — the  rolls  are  before  them — the 


84  SOME   WAR  MEMORANDA. 

money  box  is  open'd— there  are  packages  of  five,  ten,  twenty-five 
cent  pieces.  Here  comes  the  first  Company  (B),  some  82  men, 
all  blacks.  Certes,  we  cannot  find  fault  with  the  appearance  of 
this  crowd — negroes  though  they  be.  They  are  manly  enough, 
bright  enough,  look  as  if  they  had  the  soldier-stuff  in  them,  look 
hardy,  patient,  many  of  them  real  handsome  young  fellows. 
The  paying,  I  say,  has  begun.  The  men  are  march'd  up  in  close 
proximity.  The  clerk  calls  off  name  after  name,  and  each  walks 
up,  receives  his  money,  and  passes  along  out  of  the  way.  It  is  a 
real  study,  both  to  see  them  come  close,  and  to  see  them  pass 
away,  stand  counting  their  cash — (nearly  all  of  this  company  get 
ten  dollars  and  three  cents  each.)  The  clerk  calls  George 
Washington.  That  distinguish' d  personage  steps  from  the  ranks, 
in  the  shape  of  a  very  black  man,  good  sized  and  shaped, 
and  aged  atjout  30,  with  a  military  moustache ;  he  takes  his 
•"ten  three,"  and  goes  off  evidently  well  pleas'd.  (There 
are  about  a  dozen  Washingtons  in  the  company.  Let  us  hope 
they  will  do  honor  to  the  name.)  At  the  table,  how  quickly  the 
Major  handles  the  bills,  counts  without  trouble,  everything  going 
on  smoothly  and  quickly.  The  regiment  numbers  to-day  about 
1,000  men  (including  20  officers,  the  only  whites.) 

Now  another  company.  These  get  $5.36  each.  The  men 
look  well.  They,  too,  have  great  names  ;  besides  the  Washing- 
tons  aforesaid,  John  Quincy  Adams,  Daniel  Webster,  Calhoun, 
James  Madison,  Alfred  Tennyson,  John  Brown,  Benj.  G.  Tucker, 
Horace  Greeley,  etc.  The  men  step  off  aside,  count  their  money 
with  a  pleas'd,  half-puzzled  look.  Occasionally,  but  not  often, 
there  are  some  thoroughly  African  physiognomies,  very  black  in 
color,  large,  protruding  lips,  low  forehead,  etc.  But  I  have  to 
say  that  I  do  not  see  one  utterly  revolting  face. 

Then  another  company,  each  man  of  this  getting  $10.03  also. 
The  pay  proceeds  very  rapidly  (the  calculation,  roll-signing,  etc., 
having  been  arranged  before  hand.)  Then  some  trouble.  One 
company,  by  the  rigid  rules  of  official  computation,  gets  only  23 
cents  each  man.  The  company  (K)  is  indignant,  and  after  two 
or  three  are  paid,  the  refusal  to  take  the  paltry  sum  is  universal, 
and  the  company  marches  off  to  quarters  unpaid. 

Another  company  (I)  gets  only  70  cents.  The  sullen,  lowering, 
disappointed  look  is  general.  Half  refuse  it  in  this  case.  Com 
pany  G,  in  full  dress,  with  brass  scales  on  shoulders,  look'd,  per 
haps,  as  well  as  any  of  the  companies — the  men  had  an  unusually 
alert  look. 

These,  then,  are  the  black  troops, — or  the  beginning  of  them. 
Well,  no  one  can  see  them,  even  under  these  circumstances — 
their  military  career  in  its  novitiate — without  feeling  well  pleas'd 
with  them. 


SOME   WAR  MEMORANDA.  85 

As  we  enter'd  the  island,  we  saw  scores  at  a  little  distance, 
bathing,  washing  their  clothes,  etc.  The  officers,  as  far  as  looks 
go,  have  a  fine  appearance,  have  good  faces,  and  the  air  military. 
Altogether  it  is  a  significant  show,  and  brings  up  some  "aboli 
tion  "  thoughts.  The  scene,  the  porch  of  an  Old  Virginia 
slave-owner's  house,,  the  Potomac  rippling  near,  the  Capitol  just 
down  three  or  four  miles  there,  seen  through  the  pleasant  blue 
haze  of  this  July  day. 

After  a  couple  of  hours  I  get  tired,  and  go  off  for  a  ramble. 
I  write  these  concluding  lines  on  a  rock,  under  the  shade  of  a 
tree  on  the  banks  of  the  island.  It  is  solitary  here,  the  birds 
singing,  the  sluggish  muddy-yellow  waters  pouring  down  from 
the  late  rains  of  the  upper  Potomac ;  the  green  heights  on  the 
south  side  of  the  river  before  me.  The  single  cannon  from 
a  neighboring  fort  has  just  been  fired,  to  signal  high  noon.  I 
have  walk'd  all  around  Analostan,  enjoying  its  luxuriant  wildness, 
and  stopt  in  this  solitary  spot.  A  water  snake  wriggles  down  the 
bank,  disturb'd,  into  the  water.  The  bank  near  by  is  fringed 
with  a  dense  growth  of  shrubbery,  vines,  etc. 


FIVE  THOUSAND   POEMS. 

THERE  have  been  collected  in  a  cluster  nearly  five  thousand  big 
and  little  American  poems — all  that  diligent  and  long-continued 
research  could  lay  hands  on  !  The  author  of  '  Old  Grimes  is 
Dead '  commenced  it,  more  than  fifty  years  ago  ;  then  the  cluster 
was  pass'd  on  and  accumulated  by  C.  F.  Harris ;  then  further 
pass'd  on  and  added  to  by  the  late  Senator  Anthony,  from  whom 
the  whole  collection  has  been  bequeath'd  to  Brown  University. 
A  catalogue  (such  as  it  is)  has  been  made  and  publish'd  of  these 
five  thousand  poems — and  is  probably  the  most  curious  and  sug 
gestive  part  of  the  whole  affair.  At  any  rate  it  has  led  me  to 
some  abstract  reflection  like  the  following. 

I  should  like,  for  myself,  to  put  on  record  my  devout  acknowl 
edgment  not  only  of  the  great  masterpieces  of  the  past,  but  of  the 
benefit  of  all  poets,  past  and  present,  and  of  all  poetic  utterance 
— in  its  entirety  the  dominant  moral  factor  of  humanity's  pro 
gress.  In  view  of  that  progress,  and  of  evolution,  the  religious 
and  aesthetic  elements,  the  distinctive  and  most  important  of  any, 
seem  to  me  more  indebted  to  poetry  than  to  all  other  means  and 
influences  combined.  In  a  very  profound  sense  religion  is  the 
poetry  of  humanity.  Then  the  points  of  union  and  rapport  among 
all  the  poems  and  poets  of  the  world,  however  wide  their  separa 
tions  of  time  and  place  and  theme,  are  much  more  numerous  and 
weighty  than  the  points  of  contrast.  Without  relation  as  they 
may  seem  at  first  sight,  the  whole  earth's  poets  and  poetry — en 
masse — the  Oriental,  the  Greek,  and  what  there  is  of  Roman — 
the  oldest  myths — the  interminable  ballad-romances  of  the  Mid 
dle  Ages — the  hymns  and  psalms  of  worship — the  epics,  plays, 
swarms  of  lyrics  of  the  British  Islands,  or  the  Teutonic  old  or 
new — or  modern  French — or  what  there  is  in  America,  Bryant's, 
for  instance,  or  Whittier's  or  Longfellow's — the  verse  of  all 
tongues  and  ages,  all  forms,  all  subjects,  from  primitive  times  to 
our  own  day  inclusive — really  combine  in  one  aggregate  and 
electric  globe  or  universe,  with  all  its  numberless  parts  and  radia 
tions  held  together  by  a  common  centre  or  verteber.  To  repeat 
it,  all  poetry  thus  has  (to  the  point  of  view  comprehensive  enough) 
more  features  of  resemblance  than  difference,  and  becomes  essen 
tially,  like  the  planetary  globe  itself,  compact  and  orbic  and  whole. 
Nature  seems  to  sow  countless  seeds — makes  incessant  crude  at 
tempts — thankful  to  get  now  and  then,  even  at  rare  and  long 
intervals,  something  approximately  good. 
(86) 


THE  OLD   BOWERY. 

A  Reminiscence  of  New  York  Plays  and  Acting  Fifty  Years  Ago. 

IN  an  article  not  long  since,  "Mrs.  Siddons  as  Lady  Macbeth," 
in  "The  Nineteenth  Century,"  after  describing  the  bitter  regret- 
fulness  to  mankind  from  the  loss  of  those  first-class  poems,  tem 
ples,  pictures,  gone  and  vanish'd  from  any  record  of  men,  the 
writer  (Fleeming  Jenkin)  continues  : 

If  this  be  our  feeling  as  to  the  more  durable  works  of  art,  what  shall  we 
say  of  those  triumphs  which,  by  their  very  nature,  last  no  longer  than  the 
action  which  creates  them — the  triumphs  of  the  orator,  the  singer  or  the  actor? 
There  is  an  anodyne  in  the  words,  "  must  be  so,"  "  inevitable,"  and  there  is 
even  some  absurdity  in  longing  for  the  impossible.  This  anodyne  and  our 
sense  of  humor  temper  the  unhappiness  we  feel  when,  after  hearing  some  great 
performance,  we  leave  the  theatre  and  think,  "  Well,  this  great  thing  has  been, 
and  all  that  is  now  left  of  it  is  the  feeble  print  upon  my  brain,  the  little  thrill 
which  memory  will  send  along  my  nerves,  mine  and  my  neighbors,  as  we 
live  longer  the  print  and  thrill  must  be  feebler,  and  when  we  pass  away  the 
impress  of  the  great  artist  will  vanish  from  the  world."  The  regret  that  a 
great  art  should  in  its  nature  be  transitory,  explains  the  lively  interest  which 
many  feel  in  reading  anecdotes  or  descriptions  of  a  great  actor. 

All  this  is  emphatically  my  own  feeling  and  reminiscence  about 
the  best  dramatic  and  lyric  artists  I  have  seen  in  bygone  days — 
for  instance,  Marietta  Alboni,  the  elder  Booth,  Forrest,  the  tenor 
Bettini,  the  baritone  Badiali,  "old  man  Clarke" — (I  could  write 
a  whole  paper  on  the  latter's  peerless  rendering  of  the  Ghost  in 
*'  Hamlet"  at  the  Park,  when  I  was  a  young  fellow) — an  actor 
named  Ranger,  who  appear'd  in  America  forty  years  ago  in  genre 
characters  ;  Henry  Placide,  and  many  others.  But  I  will  make  a 
few  memoranda  at  least  of  the  best  one  I  knew. 

For  the  elderly  New  Yorker  of  to-day,  perhaps,  nothing  were 
more  likely  to  start  up  memories  of  his  early  manhood  than  the 
mention  of  the  Bowery  and  the  elder  Booth.  At  the  date  given, 
the  more  stylish  and  select  theatre  (prices,  50  cents  pit,  $i  boxes) 
was  "  The  Park,"  a  large  and  well-appointed  house  on  Park  Row, 
opposite  the  present  Post-office.  English  opera  and  the  old 
comedies  were  often  given  in  capital  style ;  the  principal  foreign 
stars  appear'd  here,  with  Italian  opera  at  wide  intervals.  The 
Park  held  a  large  part  in  my  boyhood's  and  young  manhood's 

(87) 


88  THE  OLD  BOWERY. 

life.  Here  I  heard  the  English  actor,  Anderson,  in  "  Charles  de 
Moor,"  and  in  the  fine  part  of  "  Gisippus. :i  Here  I  heard 
Fanny  Kemble,  Charlotte  Cushman,  the  Seguins,  Daddy  Rice, 
Hackett  as  Falstaff,  Nimrod  Wildfire,  Rip  Van  Winkle,  and  in 
his  Yankee  characters.  (See  pages  19,  20,  Specimen  Days.} 
It  was  here  (some  years  later  than  the  date  in  the  headline)  I  also 
heard  Mario  many  times,  and  at  his  best.  In  such  parts  as  Gen- 
naro,  in  "  Lucrezia  Borgia,"  he  was  inimitable — the  sweetest  of 
voices,  a  pure  tenor,  of  considerable  compass  and  respectable 
power.  His  wife,  Grisi,  was  with  him,  no  longer  first-class  or 
young — a  fine  Norma,  though,  to  the  last. 

Perhaps  my  dearest  amusement  reminiscences  are  those  musical 
ones.  I  doubt  if  ever  the  senses  and  emotions  of  the  future  will 
be  thrill'd  as  were  the  auditors  of  a  generation  ago  by  the  deep 
passion  of  Alboni's  contralto  (at  the  Broadway  Theatre,  south 
side,  near  Pearl  street) — or  by  the  trumpet  notes  of  Badiali's 
baritone,  or  Bettini's  pensive  and  incomparable  tenor  in  Fernando 
in  "  Favorita,"  or  Marini's  bass  in  "  Faliero,"  among  the  Havana 
troupe,  Castle  Garden. 

But  getting  back  more  specifically  to  the  date  and  theme  I 
started  from — the  heavy  tragedy  business  prevail'd  more  decidedly 
at  the  Bowery  Theatre,  where  Booth  and  Forrest  were  frequently 
to  be  heard.  Though  Booth  pcre,  then  in  his  prime,  ranging  in 
age  from  40  to  44  years  (he  was  born  in  1796,)  was  the  loyal  child 
and  continuer  of  the  traditions  of  orthodox  English  play-acting, 
he  stood  out  "  himself  alone"  in  many  respects  beyond  any  of  his 
kind  on  record,  and  with  effects  and  ways  that  broke  through  all 
rules  and  all  traditions.  He  has  been  well  describ'd  as  an  actor 
"  whose  instant  and  tremendous  concentration  of  passion  in  his 
delineations  overwhelmed  his  audience,  and  wrought  into  it  such 
enthusiasm  that  it  partook  of  the  fever  of  inspiration  surging 
through  his  own  veins."  He  seems  to  have  been  of  beautiful 
private  character,  very  honorable,  affectionate,  good-natured,  no 
arrogance,  glad  to  give  the  other  actors  the  best  chances.  He 
knew  all  stage  points  thoroughly,  and  curiously  ignored  the  mere 
dignities.  I  once  talk'd  with  a  man  who  had  seen  him  do  the 
Second  Actor  in  the  mock  play  to  Charles  Kean's  Hamlet  in  Bal 
timore.  He  was  a  marvellous  linguist.  He  play'd  Shylock  once 
in  London,  giving  the  dialogue  in  Hebrew,  and  in  New  Orleans 
Oreste  (Racine's  "  Andromaque")  in  French.  One  trait  of  his 
habits,  I  have  heard,  was  strict  vegetarianism.  He  was  excep 
tionally  kind  to  the  brute  creation.  Every  once  in  a  while  he 
would  make  a  break  for  solitude  or  wild  freedom,  sometimes  for 
a  few  hours,  sometimes  for  days.  (He  illustrated  Plato's  rule  that 
to  the  forming  an  artist  of  the  very  highest  rank  a  dash  of  in- 


THE  OLD  BOWERY.  89 

sanity  or  what  the  world  calls  insanity  is  indispensable.)  He  was 
a  small-sized  man — yet  sharp  observers  noticed  that  however 
crowded  the  stage  might  be  in  certain  scenes,  Booth  never  seem'd 
overtopt  or  hidden.  He  was  singularly  spontaneous  and  fluc 
tuating  ;  in  the  same  part  each  rendering  differ'd  from  any  and 
all  others.  He  had  no  stereotyped  positions  and  made  no  arbi 
trary  requirements  on  his  fellow-performers. 

As  is  well  known  to  old  play-goers,  Booth's  most  effective  part 
was  Richard  III.  Either  that,  or  lago,  or  Shylock,  or  Pescara  in 
"  The  Apostate,"  was  sure  to  draw  a  crowded  house.  (Remem 
ber  heavy  pieces  were  much  more  in  demand  those  days  than 
now.)  He  was  also  unapproachably  grand  in  Sir  Giles  Over 
reach,  in  "  A  New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts,"  and  the  principal 
character  in  "  The  Iron  Chest." 

In  any  portraiture  of  Booth,  those  years,  the  Bowery  Theatre, 
with  its  leading  lights,  and  the  lessee  and  manager,  Thomas 
Hamblin,  cannot  be  left  out.  It  was  at  the  Bowery  I  first  saw 
Edwin  Forrest  (the  play  was  John  Howard  Payne's  "  Brutus,  or 
the  Fall  of  Tarquin,"  and  it  affected  me  for  weeks;  or  rather  I 
might  say  permanently  filter'd  into  my  whole  nature,)  then  in 
the  zenith  of  his  fame  and  ability.  Sometimes  (perhaps  a  vete 
ran's  benefit  night,)  the  Bowery  would  group  together  five  or  six 
of  the  first-class  actors  of  those  days — Booth,  Forrest,  Cooper, 
Hamblin,  and  John  R.  Scott,  for  instance.  At  that  time  and 
here  George  Jones  ("  Count  Joannes")  was  a  young,  handsome 
actor,  and  quite  a  favorite.  I  remember  seeing  him  in  the  title 
role  in  "  Julius  Caesar,"  and  a  capital  performance  it  was. 

To  return  specially  to  the  manager.  Thomas  Hamblin  made 
a  first-rate  foil  to  Booth,  and  was  frequently  cast  with  him.  He 
had  a  large,  shapely,  imposing  presence,  and  dark  and  flashing- 
eyes.  I  remember  well  his  rendering  of  the  main  role  in  Matu- 
rin's  "  Bertram,  or  the  Castle  of  St.  Aldobrand."  But  I  thought 
Tom  Hamblin' s  best  acting  was  in  the  comparatively  minor  part 
of  Faulconbridge  in  "  King  John" — he  himself  evidently  revell'd 
in  the  part,  and  took  away  the  house's  applause  from  young  Kean 
(the  King)  and  Ellen  Tree  (Constance,)  and  everybody  else  on 
the  stage — some  time  afterward  at  the  Park.  Some  of  the  Bow 
ery  actresses  were  remarkably  good.  I  remember  Mrs.  Pritchard 
in  "Tour  de  Nesle,"  and  Mrs.  McClure  in  "Fatal  Curiosity," 
and  as  Millwood  in  "George  Barnwell."  (I  wonder  what  old 
fellow  reading  these  lines  will  recall  the  fine  comedietta  of  "  The 
Youth  That  Never  Saw  a  Woman,"  and  the  jolly  acting  in  it  of 
Mrs.  Herring  and  old  Gates.) 

The  Bowery,  now  and  then,  was  the  place,  too,  for  spectacular 
pieces,  such  as  "The  Last  Days  of  Pompeii,"  "The  Lion- 


go  THE  OLD  BOWERY. 

Doom'd"  and  the  yet  undying  "Mazeppa."  At  one  time 
"Jonathan  Bradford,  or  the  Murder  at  the  Roadside  Inn,"  had 
a  long  and  crowded  run ;  John  Sefton  and  his  brother  William 
acted  in  it.  I  remember  well  the  Frenchwoman  Celeste,  a 
splendid  pantomimist,  and  her  emotional  "Wept  of  the  Wish- 
ton-Wish."  But  certainly  the  main  "reason  for  being"  of  the 
Bowery  Theatre  those  years  was  to  furnish  the  public  with  For 
rest's  and  Booth's  performances — the  latter  having  a  popularity 
and  circles  of  enthusiastic  admirers  and  critics  fully  equal  to  the 
former — though  people  were  divided  as  always.  For  some  reason 
or  other,  neither  Forrest  nor  Booth  would  accept  engagements 
at  the  more  fashionable  theatre,  the  Park.  And  it  is  a  curious 
reminiscence,  but  a  true  one,  that  both  these  great  actors  and 
their  performances  were  taboo'd  by  "polite  society"  in  New 
York  and  Boston  at  the  time — probably  as  being  too  robustuous. 
But  no  such  scruples  affected  the  Bowery. 

Recalling  from  that  period  the  occasion  of  either  Forrest  or 
Booth,  any  good  night  at  the  old  Bowery,  pack'd  from  ceiling 
to  pit  with  its  audience  mainly  of  alert,  well  dress'd,  full- 
blooded  young  and  middle-aged  men,  the  best  average  of 
American-born  mechanics — the  emotional  nature  of  the  whole 
mass  arous'd  by  the  power  and  magnetism  of  as  mighty  mimes 
as  ever  trod  the  stage — the  whole  crowded  auditorium,  and  what 
seeth'd  in  it,  and  flush'd  from  its  faces  and  eyes,  to  me  as  much 
a  part  of  the  show  as  any — bursting  forth  in  one  of  those  long- 
kept-up  tempests  of  hand-clapping  peculiar  to  the  Bowery — no 
dainty  kid-glove  business,  but  electric  force  and  muscle  from 
perhaps  2000  full-sinew'd  men — (the  inimitable  and  chromatic 
tempest  of  one  of  those  ovations  to  Edwin  Forrest,  welcoming 
him  back  after  an  absence,  comes  up  to  me  this  moment) — Such 
sounds  and  scenes  as  here  resumed  will  surely  afford  to  many  old 
New  Yorkers  some  fruitful  recollections. 

I  can  yet  remember  (for  I  always  scann'd  an  audience  as 
rigidly  as  a  play)  the  faces  of  the  leading  authors,  poets,  editors, 
of  those  times — Fenimore  Cooper,  Bryant,  Paulding,  Irving, 
Charles  King,  Watson  Webb,  N.  P.  Willis,  Hoffman,  Halleck, 
Mumford,  Morris,  Leggett,  L.  G.  Clarke,  R.  A.  Locke  and 
others,  occasionally  peering  from  the  first  tier  boxes ;  and  even 
the  great  National  Eminences,  Presidents  Adams,  Jackson,  Van 
Buren  and  Tyler,  all  made  short  visits  there  on  their  Eastern 
tours. 

'Awhile  after  1840  the  character  of  the  Bowery  as  hitherto 
described  completely  changed.  Cheap  prices  and  vulgar  pro 
grammes  came  in.  People  who  of  after  years  saw  the  pande 
monium  of  the  pit  and  the  doings  on  the  boards  must  not  gauge 


THE  OLD  BOWERY.  ^ 

by  them  the  times  and  characters  I  am  describing.  Not  but 
what  there  was  more  or  less  rankness  in  the  crowd  even  then. 
For  types  of  sectional  New  York  those  days — the  streets  East  of 
the  Bowery,  that  intersect  Division,  Grand,  and  up  to  Third 
Avenue — types  that  never  found  their  Dickens,  or  Hogarth,  or 
Balzac,  and  have  pass'd  away  unportraitured — the  young  ship 
builders,  cartmen,  butchers,  firemen  (the  old-*time  "  soap-lock" 
,or  exaggerated  "  Mose  "  or  "  Sikesey,"  of  Chanfrau's  plays,)  they, 
too,  were  always  to  be  seen  in  these  audiences,  racy  of  the  East 
River  and  the  Dry  Dock.  Slang,  wit,  occasional  shirt  sleeves, 
and  a  picturesque  freedom  of  looks  and  manners,  with  a  rude 
good-nature  and  restless  movement,  were  generally  noticeable. 
Yet  there  never  were  audiences  that  paid  a  good  actor  or  an 
interesting  play  the  compliment  of  more  sustain'd  attention  or 
quicker  rapport.  Then  at  times  came  the  exceptionally  decorous 
and  intellectual  congregations  I  have  hinted  at ;  for  the  Bowery 
really  furnish' d  plays  and  players  you  could  get  nowhere  else. 
Notably,  Booth  always  drew  the  best  hearers  ;  and  to  a  specimen 
of  his  acting  I  will  now  attend  in  some  detail. 

I  happen'd  to  see  what  has  been  reckon'd  by  experts  one  of  the 
most  marvelous  pieces  of  histrionism  ever  known.  It  must  have 
been  about  1834  or  '35.  A  favorite  comedian  and  actress  at  the 
Bowery,  Thomas  Flynn  and  his  wife,  were  to  have  a  joint  benefit, 
and,  securing  Booth  for  Richard,  advertised  the  fact  many  days 
before-hand.  The  house  fill'd  early  from  top  to  bottom.  There 
was  some  uneasiness  behind  the  scenes,  for  the  afternoon  arrived, 
and  Booth  had  not  come  from  down  in  Maryland,  where  he  lived. 
However,  a  few  minutes  before  ringing-up  time  he  made  his  ap 
pearance  in  lively  condition. 

After  a  one-act  farce  over,  as  contrast  and  prelude,  the  cur 
tain  rising  for  the  tragedy,  I  can,  from  my  good  seat  in  the  pit, 
pretty  well  front,  see  again  Booth's  quiet  entrance  from  the  side, 
as,  with  head  bent,  he  slowly  and  in  silence,  (amid  the  tempest 
of  boisterous  hand-clapping,)  walks  down  the  stage  to  the  foot 
lights  with  that  peculiar  and  abstracted  gesture,  musingly  kicking 
his  sword,  which  he  holds  off  from  him  by  its  sash.  Though  fifty 
years  have  pass'd  since  then,  I  can  hear  the  clank,  and  feel  the 
perfect  following  hush  of  perhaps  three  thousand  people  waiting. 
(I  never  saw  an  actor  who  could  make  more  of  the  said  hush  or 
wait,  and  hold  the  audience  in  an  indescribable,  half-delicious, 
half-irritating  suspense.)  And  so  throughout  the  entire  play,  all 
parts,  voice,  atmosphere,  magnetism,  from 

"  Now  is  the  winter  of  our  discontent," 
to  the  closing  death  fight  with  Richmond,  were  of  the  finest  and 


9 2  THE  OLD  BOWERY. 

grandest.  The  latter  character  was  play'd  by  a  stalwart  young 
fellow  named  Ingersoll.  Indeed,  all  the  renderings  were  won 
derfully  good.  But  the  great  spell  cast  upon  the  mass  of  hearers 
came  from  Booth.  Especially  was  the  dream  scene  very  impres 
sive.  A  shudder  went  through  every  nervous  system  in  the 
audience ;  it  certainly  did  through  mine. 

Without  question  Booth  was  royal  heir  and  legitimate  repre 
sentative  of  the  Garrick-Kemble-Siddons  dramatic  traditions ; 
but  he  vitalized  and  gave  an  unnamable  race  to  those  traditions 
with  his  own  electric  personal  idiosyncrasy.  (As  in  all  art- 
utterance  it  was  the  subtle  and  powerful  something  special  to  the 
individual that  really  conquer'd.) 

To  me,  too,  Booth  stands  for  much  else  besides  theatricals.  I 
consider  that  my  seeing  the  man  those  years  glimps'd  for  me,  be 
yond  all  else,  that  inner  spirit  and  form — the  unquestionable 
charm  and  vivacity,  but  intrinsic  sophistication  and  artificiality — 
crystallizing  rapidly  upon  the  English  stage  and  literature  at  and 
after  Shakspere's  time,  and  coming  on  accumulatively  through 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  to  the  beginning,  fifty 
or  forty  years  ago,  of  those  disintegrating,  decomposing  processes 
now  authoritatively  going  on.  Yes;  although  Booth  must  be 
class'd  in  that  antique,  almost  extinct  school,  inflated,  stagy, 
rendering  Shakspere  (perhaps  inevitably,  appropriately)  from  the 
growth  of  arbitrary  and  often  cockney  conventions,  his  genius 
was  to  me  one  of  the  grandest  revelations  of  my  life,  a  lesson  of 
artistic  expression.  The  words  fire,  energy,  abandon,  found  in 
him  unprecedented  meanings.  I  never  heard  a  speaker  or  actor 
who  could  give  such  a  sting  to  hauteur  or  the  taunt.  I  never 
heard  from  any  other  the  charm  of  unswervingly  perfect  vocali 
zation  without  trenching  at  all  on  mere  melody,  the  province  of 
music. 

So  much  for  a  Thespian  temple  of  New  York  fifty  years  since, 
where  "  sceptred  tragedy  went  trailing  by  "  under  the  gaze  of  the 
Dry  Dock  youth,  and  both  players  and  auditors  were  of  a  char 
acter  and  like  we  shall  never  see  again.  And  so  much  for  the 
grandest  histrion  of  modern  times,  as  near  as  I  can  deliberately 
judge  (and  the  phrenologists  put  my  "  caution"  at  7) — 
grander,  I  believe,  than  Kean  in  the  expression  of  electric  pas 
sion,  the  prime  eligibility  of  the  tragic  artist.  For  though  those 
brilliant  years  had  many  fine  and  even  magnificent  actors,  un 
doubtedly  at  Booth's  death  (in  1852)  went  the  last  and  by  far  the 
noblest  Roman  of  them  all. 


NOTES  TO  LATE  ENGLISH 
|  BOOKS. 

"SPECIMEN  DAYS  IN  AMERICA,"  LONDON  EDITION, 
JUNE,  1887.  PREFACE  TO  THE  READER  IN  THE 
BRITISH  ISLANDS. 


IF  you  will  only  take  the  following  pages,  as  you  do  some  long 
and  gossippy  letter  written  for  you  by  a  relative  or  friend  travel 
ing  through  distant  scenes  and  incidents,  and  jotting  them  down 
lazily  and  informally,  but  ever  veraciously  (with  occasional  diver 
sions  of  critical  thought  about  somebody  or  something,)  it  might 
remove  all  formal  or  literary  impediments  at  once,  and  bring  you 
and  me  close  together  in  the  spirit  in  which  the  jottings  were  col 
lated  to  be  read.  You  have  had,  and  have,  plenty  of  public 
events  and  facts  and  general  statistics  of  America ; — in  the  fol 
lowing  book  is  a  common  individual  New  World  private  life,  its 
birth  and  growth,  its  struggles  for  a  living,  its  goings  and  com 
ings  and  observations  (or  representative  portions  of  them)  amid 
the  United  States  of  America  the  last  thirty  or  forty  years,  with 
their  varied  war  and  peace,  their  local  coloring,  the  unavoidable 
egotism,  and  the  lights  and  shades  and  sights  and  joys  and  pains 
and  sympathies  common  to  humanity.  Further  introductory 
light  may  be  found  in  the  paragraph,  "  A  Happy  Hour's  Com 
mand,"  and  the  bottom  note  belonging  to  it,  at  the  beginning 
of  the  book.  I  have  said  in  the  text  that  if  I  were  required  to 
give  good  reason-for-being  of  "Specimen  Days,"  I  should  be 
unable  to  do  so.  Let  me  fondly  hope  that  it  has  at  least  the 
reason  and  excuse  of  such  off-hand  gossippy  letter  as  just  alluded 
to,  portraying  American  life-sights  and  incidents  as  they  actually 
occurred — their  presentation,  making  additions  as  far  as  it  goes, 
to  the  simple  experience  and  association  of  your  soul,  from  a 
comrade  soul ;  —and  that  also,  in  the  volume,  as  below  any  page 

(93) 


94  NOTES  TO  LATE  ENGLISH  BOOKS. 

of  mine,   anywhere,    ever   remains,    for   seen    or   unseen   basis- 
phrase,     GOOD-WILL     BETWEEN     THE     COMMON     PEOPLE     OF     ALL 

NATIONS. 


ADDITIONAL     NOTE,     1887,    TO    ENGLISH    EDITION 
"SPECIMEN  DAYS." 

As  I  write  these  lines  I  still  continue  living  in  Camden, 
New  Jersey,  America.  Coming  this  way  from  Washington 
City,  on  my  road  to  the  sea-shore  (and  a  temporary  rest, 
as  I  supposed)  in  the  early  summer  of  1873,  I  broke  down 
disabled,  and  have  dwelt  here,  as  my  central  residence,  all  the 
time  since — almost  14  years.  In  the  preceding  pages  I  have 
described  how,  during  those  years,  I  partially  recuperated 
(in  1876)  from  my  worst  paralysis  by  going  down  to  Timber 
Creek,  living  close  to  Nature,  and  domiciling  with  my  dear 
friends,  George  and  Susan  Stafford.  From  1877  or  '8  to  '83  or 
'4  I  was  well  enough  to  travel  around,  considerably — journey'd 
westward  to  Kansas,  leisurely  exploring  the  Prairies,  and  on  to 
Denver  and  the  Rocky  Mountains;  another  time  north  to 
Canada,  where  I  spent  most  of  the  summer  with  my  friend  Dr. 
Bucke,  and  jaunted  along  the  great  lakes,  and  the  St.  Lawrence 
and  Saguenay  rivers ;  another  time  to  Boston,  to  properly  print 
the  final  edition  of  my  poems  (I  was  there  over  two  months,  and 
had  a  "good  time.")  I  have  so  brought  out  the  completed 
"  Leaves  of  Grass  "  during  this  period  ;  also  "  Specimen  Days," 
of  which  the  foregoing  is  a  transcript ;  collected  and  re-edited 
the  "Democratic  Vistas"  cluster  (see  companion  volume  to 
the  present) — commemorated  Abraham  Lincoln's  death,  on  the 
successive  anniversaries  of  its  occurrence,  by  delivering  my 
lecture  on  it  ten  or  twelve  times  ;  and  "put  in,"  through  many 
a  month  and  season,  the  aimless  and  resultless  ways  of  most 
human  lives. 

Thus  the  last  14  years  have  pass'd.  At  present  (end-days  of 
March,  1887 — I  am  nigh  entering  my  6gih  year)  I  find  myself 
continuing  on  here,  quite  dilapidated  and  even  wreck'd  bodily 
from  the  paralysis,  &c. — but  in  good  heart  (to  use  a  Long  Island 
country  phrase,)  and  with  about  the  same  mentality  as  ever. 
The  worst  of  it  is,  I  have  been  growing  feebler  quite  rapidly  for 
a  year,  and  now  can't  walk  around — hardly  from  one  room 
to  the  next.  I  am  forced  to  stay  in-doors  and  in  my  big  chair 
nearly  all  the  time.  We  have  had  a  sharp,  dreary  winter  too, 
and  it  has  pinch'd  me.  I  am  alone  most  of  the  time;  every 
week,  indeed  almost  every  day,  write  some — reminiscences, 
essays,  sketches,  for  the  magazines ;  and  read,  or  rather  I  should 


NOTES  TO  LA  TE  ENGLISH  BOOKS. 


95 


say  dawdle  over  books  and  papers  a  good  deal — spend  half  the 
day  at  that. 

Nor  can  I  finish  this  note  without  putting  on  record — wafting 
over  sea  from  hence — my  deepest  thanks  to  certain  friends 
and  helpers  (I  would  specify  them  all  and  each  by  name, 
but  imperative  reasons,  outside  of  my  own  wishes,  forbid,) 
in  the  British  Islands,  as  well  as  in  America.  Dear,  even  in  the 
abstract,  is  such  flattering  unction  always  no  doubt  to  the  soul  ! 
Nigher  still,  if  possible,  I  myself  have  been,  and  am  to-day 
indebted  to  such  help  for  my  very  sustenance,  clothing,  shelter, 
and  continuity.  And  I  would  not  go  to  the  grave  without 
briefly,  but  plainly,  as  I  here  do,  acknowledging — may  I  not  say 
even  glorying  in  it  ? 

PREFACE  TO  "DEMOCRATIC  VISTAS"  WITH  OTHER 
PAPERS.— ENGLISH  EDITION. 

MAINLY  I  think  I  should  base  the  request  to  weigh  the  follow 
ing  pages  on  the  assumption  that  they  present,  however  indirect! yr 
some  views  of  the  West  and  Modern,  or  of  a  distinctly  western 
and  modern  (American)  tendency,  about  certain  matters. 

Then,  too,  the  pages  include  (by  attempting  to  illustrate  it,)  a 
theory  herein  immediately  mentioned.  For  another  and  different 
point  of  the  issue,  the  Enlightenment,  Democracy  and  Fair-show 
of  the  bulk,  the  common  people  of  America  (from  sources  rep 
resenting  not  only  the  British  Islands,  but  all  the  world,)  means, 
at  least,  eligibility  to  Enlightenment,  Democracy  and  Fair-show 
for  the  bulk,  the  common  people  of  all  civilized  nations. 

That  positively  "  the  dry  land  has  appeared,"  at  any  rate,  is  an. 
important  fact. 

America  is  really  the  great  test  or  trial  case  for  all  the  problems 
and  promises  and  speculations  of  humanity,  and  of  the  past  and 
present. 

I  say,  too,  we*  are  not  to  look  so  much  to  changes,  ameliora 
tions,  and  adaptations  in  Politics  as  to  those  of  Literature  and 
(thence)  domestic  Sociology.  I  have  accordingly  in  the  follow 
ing  melange  introduced  many  themes  besides  political  ones. 

Several  of  the  pieces  are  ostensibly  in  explanation  of  my  own 
writings  ;  but  in  that  very  process  they  best  include  and  set  forth 
their  side  of  principles  and  generalities  pressing  vehemently  for 
consideration  our  age. 

Upon  the  whole,  it  is  on  the  atmosphere  they  are  born  in,  and, 

*  We  who,  in  many  departments,  ways,  make  the  building  up  of  the  masses, 
by  building  up  grand  individuals,  our  shibboleth  :  and  in  brief  that  is  the 
marrow  of  this  book. 


96  NOTES  TO  LATE  ENGLISH  BOOKS. 

(I  hope)  give  out,  more  than  any  specific  piece  or  trait,  I  would 
care  to  rest. 

I  think  Literature — a  new,  superb,  democratic  literature — is  to 
be  the  medicine  and  lever,  and  (with  Art)  the  chief  influence  in 
modern  civilization.  I  have  myself  not  so  much  made  a  dead 
set  at  this  theory,  or  attempted  to  present  it  directly,  as  admitted 
it  to  color  and  sometimes  dominate  what  I  had  to  say.  In  both 
Europe  and  America  we  have  serried  phalanxes  who  promulge 
and  defend  the  political  claims :  I  go  for  an  equal  force  to 
uphold  the  other. 

WALT  WHITMAN. 

CAMDEN,  NEW  JERSEY, 
April,  1888. 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

GLAD  am  I  to  give — were  anything  better  lacking— even  the 
most  brief  and  shorn  testimony  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Every 
thing  I  heard  about  him  authentically,  and  every  time  I  saw  him 
(and  it  was  my  fortune  through  1862  to  '65  to  see,  or  pass  a  word 
with,  or  watch  him,  personally,  perhaps  twenty  or  thirty  times,) 
added  to  and  anneal'd  my  respect  and  love  at  the  moment.  And 
as  I  dwell  on  what  I  myself  heard  or  saw  of  the  mighty  Westerner, 
and  blend  it  with  the  history  and  literature  of  my  age,  and  of 
what  I  can  get  of  all  ages,  and  conclude  it  with  his  death,  it  seems 
like  some  tragic  play,  superior  to  all  else  I  know — vaster  and 
fierier  and  more  convulsionary,  for  this  America  of  ours,  than 
Eschylus  or  Shakspere  ever  drew  for  Athens  or  for  England. 
And  then  the  Moral  permeating,  underlying  all  !  the  Lesson  that 
none  so  remote — none  so  illiterate — no  age,  no  class — but  may 
directly  or  indirectly  read  ! 

Abraham  Lincoln's  was  really  one  of  those  characters,  the  best 
of  which  is  the  result  of  long  trains  of  cause  and  effect — needing 
a  certain  spaciousness  of  time,  and  perhaps  even  remoteness,  to 
properly  enclose  them — having  unequal'd  influence  on  the  shap 
ing  of  this  Republic  (and  therefore  the  world)  as  to-day,  and 
then  far  more  important  in  the  future.  Thus  the  time  has  by  no 
means  yet  come  for  a  thorough  measurement  of  him.  Neverthe 
less,  we  who  live  in  his  era — who  have  seen  him,  and  heard  him, 
face  to  face,  and  are  in  the  midst  of,  or  just  parting  from,  the 
strong  and  strange  events  which  he  and  we  have  had  to  do  with — 
can  in  some  respects  bear  valuable,  perhaps  indispensable  testi 
mony  concerning  him. 

I  should  first  like  to  give  a  very  fair  and  characteristic  likeness 
of  Lincoln,  as  I  saw  him  and  wateh'd  him  one  afternoon  in  Wash 
ington,  for  nearly  half  an  hour,  not  long  before  his  death.  It 
was  as  he  stood  on  the  balcony  of  the  National  Hotel,  Pennsyl 
vania  Avenue,  making  a  short  speech  to  the  crowd  in  front,  on 
the  occasion  either  of  a  set  of  new  colors  presented  to  a  famous 
Illinois  regiment,  or  of  the  daring  capture,  by  the  Western  men, 
of  some  flags  from  "the  enemy,"  (which  latter  phrase,  by  the 
by,  was  not  used  by  him  at  all  in  his  remarks.)  How  the  picture 
happen'd  to  be  made  I  do  not  know,  but  I  bought  it  a  few  days 
7  (97) 


gS  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

afterward  in  Washington,  and  it  was  endors'd  by  every  one  to 
whom  I  show'd  it.  Though  hundreds  of  portraits  have  been 
made,  by  painters  and  photographers,  (many  to  pass  on,  by  copies, 
to  future  times,)  I  have  never  seen  one  yet  that  in  my  opinion 
deserv'd  to  be  called  a  perfectly  good  likeness ;  nor  do  I  believe 
there  is  really  such  a  one  in  existence.  May  I  not  say  too,  that, 
as  there  is  no  entirely  competent  and  emblematic  likeness  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  in  picture  or  statue,  there  is  not — perhaps  can 
not  be — any  fully  appropriate  literary  statement  or  summing-up 
of  him  yet  in  existence? 

The  best  way  to  estimate  the  value  of  Lincoln  is  to  think  what 
the  condition  of  America  would  be  to-day,  if  he  had  never  lived 
— never  been  President.  His  nomination  and  first  election  were 
mainly  accidents,  experiments.  Severely  view'd,  one  cannot 
think  very  much  of  American  Political  Parties,  from  the  begin 
ning,  after  the  Revolutionary  War,  down  to  the  present  time. 
Doubtless,  while  they  have  had  their  uses — have  been  and  are 
"the  grass  on  which  the  cow  feeds" — and  indispensable  econ 
omies  of  growth — it  is  undeniable  that  under  flippant  names  they 
have  merely  identified  temporary  passions,  or  freaks,  or  some 
times  prejudice,  ignorance,  or  hatred.  The  only  thing  like  a 
great  and  worthy  idea  vitalizing  a  party,  and  making  it  heroic, 
was  the  enthusiasm  in  '64  for  re-electing  Abraham  Lincoln,  and 
the  reason  behind  that  enthusiasm. 

How  does  this  man  compare  with  the  acknowledg'd  "  Father 
of  his  country?"  Washington  was  model'd  on  the  best  Saxon, 
and  Franklin — of  the  age  of  the  Stuarts  (rooted  in  the  Elizabethan 
period) — was  essentially  a  noble  Englishman,  and  just  the  kind 
needed  for  the  occasions  and  the  times  of  i776-'83-  Lincoln, 
underneath  his  practicality,  was  far  less  European,  was  quite 
thoroughly  Western,  original,  essentially  non-conventional,  and 
had  a  certain  sort  of  out-door  or  prairie  stamp.  One  of  the  best 
of  the  late  commentators  on  Shakspere,  (Professor  Dowden,) 
makes  the  height  and  aggregate  of  his  quality  as  a  poet  to  be, 
that  he  thoroughly  blended  the  ideal  with  the  practical  or  real 
istic.  If  this  be  so,  I  should  say  that  what  Shakspere  did  in 
poetic  expression,  Abraham  Lincoln  essentially  did  in  his  per 
sonal  and  official  life.  I  should  say  the  invisible  foundations  and 
vertebra  of  his  character,  more  than  any  man's  in  history,  were 
mystical,  abstract,  moral  and  spiritual — while  upon  all  of  them 
was  built,  and  out  of  all  of  them  radiated,  under  the  control  of 
the  average  of  circumstances,  what  the  vulgar  call  horse-sense, 
and  a  life  often  bent  by  temporary  but  most  urgent  materialistic 
and  political  reasons. 

He  seems  to  have  been  a  man  of  indomitable  firmness  (even 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  gg 

obstinacy)  on  rare  occasions,  involving  great  points ;  but  he  was 
generally  very  easy,  flexible,  tolerant,  almost  slouchy,  respecting 
minor  matters.  I  note  that  even  those  reports  and  anecdotes 
intended  to  level  him  down,  all  leave  the  tinge  of  a  favorable 
impression  of  him.  As  to  his  religious  nature,  it  seems  to  me  to 
have  certainly  been  of  the  amplest,  deepest-rooted,  loftiest  kind. 
Already  a  new  generation  begins  to  tread  the  stage,  since  the 
persons  and  events  of  the  Secession  War.  I  have  more  than  once 
fancied  to  myself  the  time  when  the  present  centoiry  has  closed, 
and  a  new  one  open'd,  and  the  men  and  deeds  of  that  contest 
have  become  somewhat  vague  and  mythical — fancied  perhaps  in 
some  great  Western  city,  or  group  collected  together,  or  public 
festival,  where  the  days  of  old,  of  1863  and  '4  and  '5  are  dis- 
cuss'd — some  ancient  soldier  sitting  in  the  background  as  the 
talk  goes  on,  and  betraying  himself  by  his  emotion  and  moist 
eyes — like  the  journeying  Ithacan  at  the  banquet  of  King  Alci- 
noiis,  when  the  bard  sings  the  contending  warriors  and  their 
battles  on  the  plains  of  Troy : 

"  So  from  the  sluices  of  Ulysses'  eyes 
Fast  fell  the  tears,  and  sighs  succeeded  sighs." 

I  have  fancied,  I  say,  some  such  venerable  relic  of  this  time 
of  ours,  preserv'd  to  the  next  or  still  the  next  generation  of 
America.  I  have  fancied,  on  such  occasion,  the  young  men 
gathering  around  ;  the  awe,  the  eager  questions  :  "  What !  have 
you  seen  Abraham  Lincoln — and  heard  him  speak — and  touch'd 
his  hand?  Have  you,  with  your  own  eyes,  look'd  on  Grant,  and 
Lee,  and  Sherman  ?  " 

Dear  to  Democracy,  to  the  very  last !  And  among  the  para 
doxes  generated  by  America,  not  the  least  curious  was  that  spec 
tacle  of  all  the  kings  and  queens  and  emperors  of  the  earth, 
many  from  remote  distances,  sending  tributes  of  condolence  and 
sorrow  in  memory  of  one  rais'd  through  the  commonest  average 
of  life — a  rail-splitter  and  flat-boatman  ! 

Consider'd  from  contemporary  points  of  view — who  knows 
what  the  future  may  decide  ? — and  from  the  points  of  view  of 
current  Democracy  and  The  Union,  (the  only  thing  like  passion 
or  infatuation  in  the  man  was  the  passion  for  the  Union  of 
These  States,)  Abraham  Lincoln  seems  to  me  the  grandest  figure 
yet,  on  all  the  crowded  canvas  of  the  Nineteenth  Century. 


[From  the  New  Orleans  Picayune,  Jan.  25,  1887.] 

-   NEW  ORLEANS  IN  1848. 

WALT  WHITMAN   GOSSIPS   OF  His  SOJOURN  HERE  YEARS  AGO 
AS   A  NEWSPAPER  WRITER.      NOTES   OF   His   TRIP   UP   THE 

MISSISSIPPI   AND    TO    NEW   YORK. 

AMONG  the  letters  brought  this  morning  (Camden,  New  Jer 
sey,  Jan.  15,  1887,)  by  my  faithful  post-office  carrier,  J.  G.,  is 
one  as  follows : 

"NEW  ORLEANS,  Jan.  II,  '87. — We  have  been  informed  that  when  you 
were  younger  and  less  famous  than  now,  you  were  in  New  Orleans  and  per 
haps  have  helped  on  the  Picayune.  If  you  have  any  remembrance  of  the 
Picayune's  young  days,  or  of  journalism  in  New  Orleans  of  that  era,  and 
would  put  it  in  writing  (verse  or  prose)  for  the  Picayune's  fiftieth  year  edi 
tion,  Jan.  25,  we  shall  be  pleased,"  etc. 

In  response  to  which :  I  went  down  to  New  Orleans  early  in 
1848  to  work  on  a  daily  newspaper,  but  it  was  not  the  Picayune, 
though  I  saw  quite  a  good  deal  of  the  editors  of  that  paper,  and 
knew  its  personnel  and  ways.  But  let  me  indulge  my  pen  in 
some  gossipy  recollections  of  that  time  and  place,  with  extracts 
from  my  journal  up  the  Mississippi  and  across  the  great  lakes  to 
the  Hudson. 

Probably  the  influence  most  deeply  pervading  everything  at 
that  time  through  the  United  States,  both  in  physical  facts  and 
in  sentiment,  was  the  Mexican  War,  then  just  ended.  Following 
a  brilliant  campaign  (in  which  our  troops  had  march'd  to  the 
capital  city,  Mexico,  and  taken  full  possession,)  we  were  return 
ing  after  our  victory.  From  the  situation  of  the  country,  the 
city  of  New  Orleans  had  been  our  channel  and  entrepot  for 
everything,  going  and  returning.  It  had  the  best  news  and  war 
correspondents ;  it  had  the  most  to  say,  through  its  leading 
papers,  the  Picayune  and  Delta  especially,  and  its  voice  was 
readiest  listen' d  to;  from  it  "  Chapparal  "  had  gone  out,  and  his 
army  and  battle  letters  were  copied  everywhere,  not  only  in  the 
United  States,  but  in  Europe.  Then  the  social  cast  and  results ; 
no  one  who  has  never  seen  the  society  of  a  city  under  similar 
circumstances  can  understand  what  a  strange  vivacity  and  rattle 
(100) 


NEW  ORLEANS  IN  1848.  IOI 

were  given  throughout  by  such  a  situation.  I  remember  the 
crowds  of  soldiers,  the  gay  young  officers,  going  or  coming, 
the  receipt  of  important  news,  the  many  discussions,  the  return 
ing  wounded,  and  so  on. 

I  remember  very  well  seeing  Gen.  Taylor  with  his  staff  and 
other  officers  at  the  St.  Charles  Theatre  one  evening  (after  talk- 
'ing  with  them  during  the  day.)  There  was  a  short  play  on  the 
stage,  but  the  principal  performance  was  of  Dr.  Colyer's  troupe 
of  "Model  Artists,"  then  in  the  full  tide  of  their  popularity. 
They  gave  many  fine  groups  and  solo  shows.  The  house  was 
crowded  with  uniforms  and  shoulder-straps.  Gen.  T.  himself, 
if  I  remember  right,  was  almost  the  only  officer  in  civilian 
clothes;  he  was  a  jovial,  old,  rather  stout,  plain  man,  with  a 
wrinkled  and  dark-yellow  face,  and,  in  ways  and  manners, 
show'd  the  least  of  conventional  ceremony  or  etiquette  I  ever 
saw;  he  laugh'd  unrestrainedly  at  everything  comical.  (He  had 
a  great  personal  resemblance  to  Fenimore  Cooper,  the  novelist, 
of  New  York.)  I  remember  Gen.  Pillow  and  quite  a  cluster  of 
other  militaires  also  present. 

One  of  my  choice  amusements  during  my  stay  in  New  Orleans 
was  going  down  to  the  old  French  Market,  especially  of  a  Sunday 
morning.  The  show  was  a  varied  and  curious  one ;  among  the 
rest,  the  Indian  and  negro  hucksters  with  their  wares.  For  there 
were  always  fine  specimens  of  Indians,  both  men  and  women, 
young  and  old.  I  remember  I  nearly  always  on  these  occasions 
got  a  large  cup  of  delicious  coffee  with  a  biscuit,  for  my  break 
fast,  from  the  immense  shining  copper  kettle  of  a  great  Creole 
mulatto  woman  (I  believe  she  weigh'd  230  pounds.)  I  never 
have  had  such  coffee  since.  About  nice  drinks,  anyhow,  my  re 
collection  of  the  "  cobblers"  (with  strawberries  and  snow  on  top 
of  the  large  tumblers,)  and  also  the  exquisite  wines,  and  the  per 
fect  and  mild  French  brandy,  help  the  regretful  reminiscence  of 
my  New  Orleans  experiences  of  those  days.  And  what  splendid 
and  roomy  and  leisurely  bar-rooms  !  particularly  the  grand  ones 
of  the  St.  Charles  and  St.  Louis.  Bargains,  auctions,  appoint 
ments,  business  conferences,  &c.,  were  generally  held  in  the 
spaces  or  recesses  of  these  bar-rooms. 

I  used  to  wander  a  midday  hour  or  two  now  and  then  for  amuse 
ment  on  the  crowded  and  bustling  levees,  on  the  banks  of  the 
river.  The  diagonally  wedg'd-in  boats,  the  stevedores,  the  piles 
of  cotton  and  other  merchandise,  the  carts,  mules,  negroes,  etc., 
afforded  never-ending  studies  and  sights  to  me.  I  made  acquaint 
ances  among  the  captains,  boatmen,  or  other  characters,  and  often 
had  long  talks  with  them — sometimes  finding  a  real  rough  dia 
mond  among  my  chance  encounters.  Sundays  I  sometimes  went 


I02  NEW  ORLEANS  IN  1848. 

forenoons  to  the  old  Catholic  Cathedral  in  the  French  quarter. 
I  used  to  walk  a  good  deal  in  this  arrondissement ;  and  I  have 
deeply  regretted  since  that  I  did  not  cultivate,  while  I  had  such 
a  good  opportunity,  the  chance  of  better  knowledge  of  French 
and  Spanish  Creole  New  Orleans  people.  (I  have  an  idea  that 
there  is  much  and  of  importance  about  the  Latin  race  contribu 
tions  to  American  nationality  in  the  South  and  Southwest  that 
will  never  be  put  with  sympathetic  understanding  and  tact  on 
record.) 

Let  me  say,  for  better  detail,  that  through  several  months 
(1848)  I  work'd  on  a  new  daily  paper,  The  Crescent ;  my  situa 
tion  rather  a  pleasant  one.  My  young  brother,  Jeff,  was  with 
me ;  and  he  not  only  grew  very  homesick,  but  the  climate  of  the 
place,  and  especially  the  water,  seriously  disagreed  with  him. 
From  this  and  other  reasons  (although  I  was  quite  happily  fix'd) 
I  made  no  very  long  stay  in  the  South.  In  due  time  we  took 
passage  northward  for  St.  Louis  in  the  "Pride  of  the  West" 
steamer,  which  left  her  wharf  just  at  dusk.  My  brother  was  un 
well,  and  lay  in  his  berth  from  the  moment  we  left  till  the  next 
morning;  he  seem'd  to  me  to  be  in  a  fever,  and  I  felt  alarm'd. 
However,  the  next  morning  he  was  all  right  again,  much  to  my 
relief. 

Our  voyage  up  the  Mississippi  was  after  the  same  sort  as  the 
voyage,  some  months  before,  down  it.  The  shores  of  this  great 
river  are  very  monotonous  and  dull — one  continuous  and  rank 
flat,  with  the  exception  of  a  meagre  stretch  of  bluff,  about  the 
neighborhood  of  Natchez,  Memphis,  etc.  Fortunately  we  had 
good  weather,  and  not  a  great  crowd  of  passengers,  though  the 
berths  were  all  full.  The  "  Pride"  jogg'd  along  pretty  well,  and 
put  us  into  St.  Louis  about  noon  Saturday.  After  looking  around 
a  little  I  secured  passage  on  the  steamer  "  Prairie  Bird,"  (to  leave 
late  in  the  afternoon,)  bound  up  the  Illinois  River  to  La  Salle, 
where  we  were  to  take  canal  for  Chicago.  During  the  day  I 
rambled  with  my  brother  over  a  large  portion  of  the  town, 
search' d  after  a  refectory,  and,  after  much  trouble,  succeeded  in 
getting  some  dinner. 

Our  "  Prairie  Bird  "  started  out  at  dark,  and  a  couple  of  hours 
after  there  was  quite  a  rain  and  blow,  which  made  them  haul  in 
along  shore  and  tie  fast.  We  made  but  thirty  miles  the  whole 
night.  The  boat  was  excessively  crowded  with  passengers,  and 
had  withal  so  much  freight  that  we  could  hardly  turn  around.  I 
slept  on  the  floor,  and  the  night  was  uncomfortable  enough.  The 
Illinois  River  is  spotted  with  little  villages  with  big  names,  Mar 
seilles,  Naples,  etc.  ;  its  banks  are  low,  and  the  vegetation  ex 
cessively  rank.  Peoria,  some  distance  up,  is  a  pleasant  town  ;  I 


NEW  ORLEANS  IN  1848.  103 

went  over  the  place  ;  the  country  back  is  all  rich  land,  for  sale 
cheap.  Three  or  four  miles  from  P.,  land  of  the  first  quality  can 
be  bought  for  $3  or  $4  an  acre.  (I  am  transcribing  from  my  notes 
written  at  the  time.) 

Arriving  at  La  Salle  Tuesday  morning,  we  went  on  board  a 
canal-boat,  had  a  detention  by  sticking  on  a  mud  bar,  and  then 
jogg'd  along  at  a  slow  trot,  some  seventy  of  us,  on  a  moderate- 
sized  boat.  (If  the  weather  hadn't  been  rather  cool,  particularly 
at  night,  it  would  have  been  insufferable.)  Illinois  is  the  most 
splendid  agricultural  country  I  ever  saw ;  the  land  is  of  surpass 
ing  richness;  the  place  par  excellence  for  farmers.  We  stopt 
at  various  points  along  the  canal,  some  of  them  pretty  villages. 

It  was  10  o'clock  A.  M.  when  we  got  in  Chicago,  too  late  for 
the  steamer ;  so  we  went  to  an  excellent  public  house,  the 
"American  Temperance,"  and  I  spent  the  time  that  day  and  till 
next  morning,  looking  around  Chicago. 

At  9  the  next  forenoon  we  started  on  the  "  Griffith  "  (on  board 
of  which  I  am  now  inditing  these  memoranda,)  up  the  blue  waters 
of  Lake  Michigan.  I  was  delighted  with  the  appearance  of  the 
towns  along  Wisconsin.  At  Milwaukee  I  went  on  shore,  and 
walk'd  around  the  place.  They  say  the  country  back  is  beautiful 
and  rich.  (It  seems  to  me  that  if  we  should  ever  remove  from 
Long  Island,  Wisconsin  would  be  the  proper  place  to  come  to.) 
The  towns  have  a  remarkable  appearance  of  good  living,  without 
any  penury  or  want.  The  country  is  so  good  naturally,  and  labor 
is  in  such  demand. 

About  5  o'clock  one  afternoon  I  heard  the  cry  of  "  a  woman 
overboard."  It  proved  to  be  a  crazy  lady,  who  had  become  so 
from  the  loss  of  her  son  a  couple  of  weeks  before.  The  small 
boat  put  off,  and  succeeded  in  picking  her  up,  though  she  had 
been  in  the  water  15  minutes.  She  was  dead.  Her  husband  was 
on  board.  They  went  off  at  the  next  stopping  place.  While 
she  lay  in  the  water  she  probably  recover'd  her  reason,  as  she 
toss'd  up  her  arms  and  lifted  her  face  toward  the  boat. 

Sunday  Morning,  June  n. — We  pass'd  down  Lake  Huron 
yesterday  and  last  night,  and  between  4  and  5  o'clock  this 
morning  we  ran  on  the  "flats,"  and  have  been  vainly  trying, 
with  the  aid  of  a  steam  tug  and  a  lumbering  lighter,  to  get  clear 
again.  The  day  is  beautiful  and  the  water  clear  and  calm. 
Night  before  last  we  stopt  at  Mackinaw,  (the  island  and  town,) 
and  I  went  up  on  the  old  fort,  one  of  the  oldest  stations  in  the 
Northwest.  We  expect  to  get  to  Buffalo  by  to-morrow.  The 
tug  has  fasten'd  lines  to  us,  but  some  have  been  snapt  and  the 
others  have  no  effect.  We  seem  to  be  firmly  imbedded  in  the 
sand.  (With  the  exception  of  a  larger  boat  and  better  accom- 


104  NEW  ORLEANS  IN  1848. 

modations,  it  amounts  to  about  the  same  thing  as  a  becalmment 
I  underwent  on  the  Montauk  voyage,  East  Long  Island,  last 
summer.)  Later. — We  are  off  again — expect  to  reach  Detroit 
before  dinner. 

We  did  not  stop  at  Detroit.  We  are  now  on  Lake  Erie,  jog 
ging  along  at  a  good  round  pace.  A  couple  of  hours  since  we 
were  on  the  river  above.  Detroit  seem'd  to  me  a  pretty  place 
and  thrifty.  I  especially  liked  the.  looks  of  the  Canadian  shore 
opposite  and  of  the  little  village  of  Windsor,  and,  indeed,  all 
along  the  banks  of  the  river.  From  the  shrubbery  and  the  neat 
appearance  of  some  of  the  cottages,  I  think  it  must  have  been 
settled  by  the  French.  While  I  now  write  we  can  see  a  little 
distance  ahead  the  scene  of  the  battle  between  Perry's  fleet  and 
the  British  during  the  last  war  with  England.  The  lake  looks  to 
me  a  fine  sheet  of  water.  We  are  having  a  beautiful  day. 

June  12. — We  stopt  last  evening  at  Cleveland,  and  though  it 
was  dark,  I  took  the  opportunity  of  rambling  about  the  place ; 
went  up  in  the  heart  of  the  city  and  back  to  what  appear' d  to  be 
the  court-house.  The  streets  are  unusually  wide,  and  the  build 
ings  appear  to  be  substantial  and  comfortable.  We  went  down 
through  Main  Street  and  found,  some  distance  along,  several 
squares  of  ground  very  prettily  planted  with  trees  and  looking 
attractive  enough.  Return'd  to  the  boat  by  way  of  the  light 
house  on  the  hill. 

This  morning  we  are  making  for  Buffalo,  being,  I  imagine,  a 
little  more  than  half  across  Lake  Erie.  The  water  is  rougher 
than  on  Michigan  or  Huron.  (On  St.  Clair  it  was  smooth  as 
glass.)  The  day  is  bright  and  dry,  with  a  stiff  head  wind. 

We  arriv'd  in  Buffalo  on  Monday  evening;  spent  that  night 
and  a  portion  of  next  day  going  round  the  city  exploring.  Then 
got  in  the  cars  and  went  to  Niagara;  went  under  the  falls — saw 
the  whirlpool  and  all  the  other  sights. 

Tuesday  night  started  for  Albany;  travel'd  all  night.  From 
the  time  daylight  afforded  us  a  view  of  the  country  all  seem'd 
very  rich  and  well  cultivated.  Every  few  miles  were  large  towns 
or  villages. 

Wednesday  late  we  arriv'd  at  Albany.  Spent  the  evening  in 
exploring.  There  was  a  political  meeting  (Hunker)  at  the  capi- 
tol,  but  I  pass'd  it  by.  Next  morning  I  started  down  the  Hud 
son  in  the  "Alida;"  arriv'd  safely  in  New  York  that  evening. 


SMALL  MEMORANDA. 

Thousands  lost — here  one  or  two  preserved. 

ATTORNEY  GENERAL'S  OFFICE,  Washington,  Aug.  22,  1865. — 
As  I  write  this,  about  noon,  the  suite  of  rooms  here  is  fill'd  with 
southerners,  standing  in  squads,  or  streaming  in  and  out,  some 
talking  with  the  Pardon  Clerk,  some  waiting  to  see  the  Attorney 
General,  others  discussing  in  low  tones  among  themselves.  All 
are  mainly  anxious  about  their  pardons.  The  famous  i3th  ex 
ception  of  the  President's  Amnesty  Proclamation  of , 

makes  it  necessary  that  every  secessionist,  whose  property  is 
worth  $20, ooo 'or  over,  shall  get  a  special  pardon,  before  he  can 
transact  any  legal  purchase,  sale,  &c.  So  hundreds  and  thousands 
of  such  property  owners  have  either  sent  up  here,  for  the  last  two 
months,  or  have  been,  or  are  now  coming  personally  here,  to  get 
their  pardons.  They  are  from  Virginia,  Georgia,  Alabama,  Mis 
sissippi,  North  and  South  Carolina,  and  every  southern  State. 
Some  of  their  written  petitions  are  very  abject.  Secession 
officers  of  the  rank  of  Brigadier  General,  or  higher,  also  need 
these  special  pardons.  They  also  come  here.  I  see  streams  of 
the  $20,000  men,  (and  some  women,)  every  day.  .  I  talk  now 
and  then  with  them,  and  learn  much  that  is  interesting  and  sig 
nificant.  All  the  southern  women  that  come  (some  splendid 
specimens,  mothers,  &c.)  are  dress'd  in  deep  black. 

Immense  numbers  (several  thousands")  of  these  pardons  have 
been  pass'd  upon  favorably;  the  Pardon  Warrants  (like  great 
deeds)  have  been  issued  from  the  State  Department,  on  the 
requisition  of  this  office.  But  for  some  reason  or  other,  they 
nearly  all  yet  lie  awaiting  the  President's  signature.  He  seems 
to  be  in  no  hurry  about  it,  but  lets  them  wait. 

The  crowds  that  come  here  make  a  curious  study  for  me.     I ' 
get  along,  very  sociably,  with  any  of  them — as  I  let  them  do  all 
the  talking  \   only  now  and  then  I  have  a  long  confab,  or  ask  a 
suggestive  question  or  two. 

If  the  thing  continues  as  at  present,  the  property  and  wealth 
of  the  Southern  States  is  going  to  legally  rest,  for  the  future,  on 

(105) 


I06  SMALL  MEMORANDA. 

these  pardons.  Every  single  one  is  made  out  with  the  condition 
that  the  grantee  shall  respect  the  abolition  of  slavery,  and  never 
make  an  attempt  to  restore  it. 

Washington,  Sept.  8,  9,  .<5rv.,  1865. — The  arrivals,  swarms, 
&c.,  of  the  $20,000  men  seeking  pardons,  still  continue  with  in- 
creas'd  numbers  and  pertinacity.  I  yesterday  (I  am  a  clerk  in 
the  U.  S.  Attorney  General's  office  here)  made  out  a  long  list 
from  Alabama,  nearly  200,  recommended  for  pardon  by  the  Pro 
visional  Governor.  This  list,  in  the  shape  of  a  requisition  from 
the  Attorney  General,  goes  to  the  State  Department.  There  the 
Pardon  Warrants  are  made  out,  brought  back  here,  and  then  sent 
to  the  President,  where  they  await  his  signature.  He  is  signing 
them  very  freely  of  late. 

The  President,  indeed,  as  at  present  appears,  has  fix'd  his 
mind  on  a  very  generous  and  forgiving  course  toward  the  re- 
turn'd  secessionists.  He  will  not  countenance  at  all  the  demand 
of  the  extreme  Philo-African  element  of  the  North,  to  make  the 
right  of  negro  voting  at  elections  a  condition  and  sine  qua  non 
of  the  reconstruction  of  the  United  States  south,  and  of  their 
resumption  of  co-equality  in  the  Union. 

A  glint  inside  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  Cabinet  appointments. 
One  item  of  many. — While  it  was  hanging  in  suspense  who 
should  be  appointed  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  (to  take  the  place 
of  Caleb  Smith,)  the  choice  was  very  close  between  Mr.  Harlan 
and  Col.  Jesse  K.  Dubois,  of  Illinois.  The  latter  had  many 
friends.  He  was  competent,  he  was  honest,  and  he  was  a  man. 
Mr.  Harlan,  in  the  race,  finally  gain'd  the  Methodist  interest, 
and  got  himself  to  be  consider'd  as  identified  with  it ;  and  his 
appointment  was  apparently  ask'd  for  by  that  powerful  body. 
Bishop  Simpson,  of  Philadelphia,  came  on  and  spoke  for  the 
selection.  The  President  was  much  perplex'd.  The  reasons 
for  appointing  Col.  Dubois  were  very  strong,  almost  insuper 
able — yet  the  argument  for  Mr.  Harlan,  under  the  adroit  posi 
tion  he  had  plac'd  himself,  was  heavy.  Those  who  press'd  him 
adduc'd  the  magnitude  of  the  Methodists  as  a  body,  their  loyalty, 
more  general  and  genuine  than  any  other  sect — that  they  repre 
sented  the  West,  and  had  a  right  to  be  heard — that  all  or  nearly 
all  the  other  great  denominations  had  their  representatives  in  the 
heads  of  the  government — that  they  as  a  body  and  the  great 
sectarian  power  of  the  West,  formally  ask'd  Mr.  Harlan's  ap 
pointment — that  he  was  of  them,  having  been  a  Methodist 
minister — that  it  would  not  do  to  offend  them,  but  was  highly 
necessary  to  propitiate  them. 


SMALL  MEMORANDA.  107 

Mr.  Lincoln  thought  deeply  over  the  whole  matter.  He  was 
in  more  than  usual  tribulation  on  the  subject.  Let  it  be  enough 
to  say  that  though  Mr.  Harlan  finally  receiv'd  the  Secretaryship, 
Col.  Dubois  came  as  near  being  appointed  as  a  man  could,  and 
not  be.  The  decision  was  finally  made  one  night  about  10 
o'clock.  Bishop  Simpson  and  other  clergymen  and  leading  per 
sons  in  Mr.  Harlan's  behalf,  had  been  talking  long  and  vehe 
mently  with  the  President.  A  member  of  Congress  who  was 
pressing  Col.  Dubois's  claims,  was  in  waiting.  The  President 
had  told  the  Bishop  that  he  would  make  a  decision  that  evening, 
and  that  he  thought  it  unnecessary  to  be  press' d  any  more  on  the 
subject.  That  night  he  call'd  in  the  M.  C.  above  alluded  to,  and 
said  to  him :  "  Tell  Uncle  Jesse  that  I  want  to  give  him  this  ap 
pointment,  and  yet  I  cannot.  I  will  do  almost  anything  else  in 
the  world  for  him  I  am  able.  I  have  thought  the  matter  all  over, 
and  under  the  circumstances  think  the  Methodists  too  good  and 
too  great  a  body  to  be  slighted.  They  have  stood  by  the  govern 
ment,  and  help'd  us  their  very  best.  I  have  had  no  better  friends ; 
and  as  the  case  stands,  I  have  decided  to  appoint  Mr.  Harlan." 


NOTE   TO   A   FRIEND. 

[Written  on  the  fly-leaf  of  a  copy  of  "  Specimen  Days,"  sent  to  Peter 
Doyle,  at  Washington,  June,  1883.] 

Pete,  do  you  remember — (of  course  you  do — I  do  well) — those 
great  long  jovial  walks  we  had  at  times  for  years,  (1866-' 7 2)  out 
of  Washington  City — often  moonlight  nights — 'way  to  "Good 
Hope"; — or,  Sundays,  up  and  down  the  Potomac  shores,  one 
side  or  the  other,  sometimes  ten  miles  at  a  stretch  ?  Or  when 
you  work'd  on  the  horse-cars,  and  I  waited  for  you,  coming 
home  late  together — or  resting  and  chatting  at  the  Market,  cor 
ner  7th  Street  and  the  Avenue,  and  eating  those  nice  musk  or 
watermelons  ?  Or  during  my  tedious  sickness  and  first  paralysis 
('73)  how  you  used  to  come  to  my  solitary  garret-room  and  make 
up  my  bed,  and  enliven  me,  and  chat  for  an  hour  or  so — or  per 
haps  go  out  and  get  the  medicines  Dr.  Drinkard  had  order'd  for 

me — before  you  went  on  duty? Give  my  love  to  dear  Mrs. 

and  Mr.  Nash,  and  tell  them  I  have   not  forgotten  them,  and 
never  will.  W.  W. 

WRITTEN   IMPROMPTU   IN   AN   ALBUM. 

GERMAN-TOWN,  PHILA.,  Dec.  26,  '83. 
In  memory  of  these  merry  Christmas  days  and  nights — to  my 


I08  SMALL  MEMORANDA. 

friends  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Williams,  Churchie,  May,  Gurney,  and 
little  Aubrey A  heavy  snow-storm  blocking  up  every 
thing,  and  keeping  us  in.  But  souls,  hearts,  thoughts,  unloos'd. 
And  so — one  and  all,  little  and  big — hav'n't  we  had  a  good 
time?  W.  W. 


From  the  Philadelphia  Press,  Nov.  27,  1884,  {Thanksgiving  number.} 
THE  PLACE  GRATITUDE  FILLS  IN  A  FINE   CHARACTER. 

Scene. — A  large  family  supper  party,  a  night  or  two  ago,  with 
voices  and  laughter  of  the  young,  mellow  faces  of  the  old,  and  a 
by-and-by  pause  in  the  general  jovialty.  "  Now,  Mr.  Whitman," 
spoke  up  one  of  the  girls,  "  what  have  you  to  say  about  Thanks 
giving?  Won't  you  give  us  a  sermon  in  advance,  to  sober  us 
down?"  The  sage  nodded  smilingly,  look'd  a  moment  at  the 
blaze  of  the  great  wood  fire,  ran  his  forefinger  right  and  left 
through  the  heavy  white  moustache  that  might  have  otherwise 
impeded  his  voice,  and  began  :  "  Thanksgiving  goes  probably  far 
deeper  than  you  folks  suppose.  I  am  not  sure  but  it  is  the  source 
of  the  highest  poetry — as  in  parts  of  the  Bible.  Ruskin,  indeed, 
makes  the  central  source  of  all  great  art  to  be  praise  (gratitude) 
to  the  Almighty  for  life,  and  the  universe  with  its  objects  and 
play  of  action. 

"We  Americans  devote  an  official  day  to  it  every  year;  yet  I 
sometimes  fear  the  real  article  is  almost  dead  or  dying  in  our  self- 
sufficient,  independent  Republic.  Gratitude,  anyhow,  has  never 
been  made  half  enough  of  by  the  moralists ;  it  is  indispensable 
to  a  complete  character,  man's  or  woman's — the  disposition  to  be 
appreciative,  thankful.  That  is  the  main  matter,  the  element, 
inclination — what  geologists  call  the  trend.  Of  my  own  life  and 
writings  I  estimate  the  giving  thanks  part,  with  what  it  infers,  as 
essentially  the  best  item.  I  should  say  the  quality  of  gratitude 
rounds  the  whole  emotional  nature ;  I  should  say  love  and  faith 
would  quite  lack  vitality  without  it.  There  are  people — shall  I 
call  them  even  religious  people,  as  things  go  ? — who  have  no  such 
trend  to  their  disposition." 


LAST  OF  THE  WAR  CASES 

Memorandized  at  the  time,  Washington,  1865-66. 

[Or  reminiscences  of  the  Secession  War,  after  the  rest  is  said, 
I  have  thought  it  remains  to  give  a  few  special  words — in  some 
respects  at  the  time  the  typical  words  of  all,  and  most  definite— 
of  the  samples  of  the  kill'd  and  wounded  in  action,  and  of  sol 
diers  who  linger 'd  afterward,  from  these  wounds,  or  were  laid  up 
by  obstinate  disease  or  prostration.  The  general  statistics  have 
been  printed  already,  but  can  bear  to  be  briefly  stated  again. 
There  were  over  3,000,000  men  (for  all  periods  of  enlistment, 
large  and  small)  furnish'd  to  the  Union  army  during  the  war, 
New  York  State  furnishing  over  500,000,  which  was  the  greatest 
number  of  any  one  State.  The  losses  by  disease,  wounds,  kill'd 
in  action,  accidents,  &c.,  were  altogether  about  600,000,  or  ap 
proximating  to  that  number.  Over  4,000,000  cases  were  treated 
in  the  main  and  adjudicatory  army  hospitals.  The  number  sounds 
strange,  but  it  is  true.  More  than  two-thirds  of  the  deaths  were 
from  prostration  or  disease.  To-day  there  lie  buried  over  300,000 
soldiers  in  the  various  National  army  Cemeteries,  more  than  half 
of  them  (and  that  is  really  the  most  significant  and  eloquent  be 
quest  of  the  War)  mark'd  "  unknown."  In  full  mortuary  statis 
tics  of  the  war,  the  greatest  deficiency  arises  from  our  not  having 
the  rolls,  even  as  far  as  they  were  kept,  of  most  of  the  Southern 
military  prisons — a  gap  which  probably  both  adds  to,  and  helps 
conceal,  the  indescribable  horrors  of  those  places ;  it  is,  however, 
(restricting  one  vivid  point  only)  certain  that  over  30,000  Union 
soldiers  died,  largely  of  actual  starvation,  in  them.  And  now, 
leaving  all  figures  and  their  "sum  totals,"  I  feel  sure  a  few  gen 
uine  memoranda  of  such  things — some  cases  jotted  down  '64, 
'65,  and  '66 — made  at  the  time  and  on  the  spot,  with  all  the  as 
sociations  of  those  scenes  and  places  brought  back,  will  not  only 
go  directest  to  the  right  spot,  but  give  a  clearer  and  more  actual 
sight  of  that  period,  than  anything  else.  Before  I  give  the  last 
cases  I  begin  with  verbatim  extracts  from  letters  home  to  my 
mother  in  Brooklyn,  the  second  year  of  the  war. — W.  W.] 

Washington,    Oct.    13,   1863. — There   has  been  a  new  lot  of 

(109) 


IIO  LAST  OF  THE   WAR  CASES. 

wounded  and  sick  arriving  for  the  last  three  days.  The  first  and 
second  days,  long  strings  of  ambulances  with  the  sick.  Yester 
day  the  worst,  many  with  bad  and  bloody  wounds,  inevitably 
long  neglected.  I  thought  I  was  cooler  and  more  used  to  it,  but 
the  sight  of  some  cases  brought  tears  into  my  eyes.  I  had  the 
luck  yesterday,  however,  to  do  lots  of  good.  Had  provided 
many  nourishing  articles  for  the  men  for  another  quarter,  but, 
fortunately,  had  my  stores  where  I  could  use  them  at  once  for 
these  new-comers,  as  they  arrived,  faint,  hungry,  fagg'd  out  from 
their  journey,  with  soil'd  clothes,  and  all  bloody.  I  distributed 
these  articles,  gave  partly  to  the  nurses  I  knew,  or  to  those  in 
charge.  As  many  as  possible  I  fed  myself.  Then  I  found  a  lot 
of  oyster  soup  handy,  and  bought  it  all  at  once. 

It  is  the  most  pitiful  sight,  this,  when  the  men  are  first  brought 
in,  from  some  camp  hospital  broke  up,  or  a  part  of  the  army 
moving.  These  who  arrived  yesterday  are  cavalry  men.  Our 
troops  had  fought  like  devils,  but  got  the  worst  of  it.  They  were 
Kilpatrick's  cavalry;  were  in  the  rear,  part  of  Meade's  retreat, 
and  the  reb  cavalry,  knowing  the  ground  and  taking  a  favorable 
opportunity,  dash'd'  in  between,  cut  them  off,  and  shell'd  them 
terribly.  But  Kilpatrick  turn'd  and  brought  them  out  mostly. 
It  was  last  Sunday.  (One  of  the  most  terrible  sights  and  tasks  is 
of  such  receptions. ) 

Oct.  27,  1863. — If  any  of  the  soldiers  I  know  (or  their  parents 
or  folks)  should  call  upon  you — as  they  are  often  anxious  to  have 
my  address  in  Brooklyn — you  just  use  them  as  you  know  how, 
and  if  you  happen  to  have  pot-luck,  and  feel  to  ask  them  to  take 
a  bite,  don't  be  afraid  to  do  so,  I  have  a  friend,  Thomas  Neat, 
2d  N.  Y.  Cavalry,  wounded  in  leg,  now  home  in  Jamaica,  on 
furlough  ;  he  will  probably  call.  Then  possibly  a  Mr.  Haskell, 
or  some  of  his  folks,  from  western  New  York  :  he  had  a  son  died 
here,  and  I  was  with  the  boy  a  good  deal.  The  old  man  and  his 
wife  have  written  me  and  ask'd  me  my  Brooklyn  address ;  he  said 
he  had  children  in  New  York,  and  was  occasionally  down  there. 
(When  I  come  home  I  will  show  you  some  of  the  letters  I  get 
from  mothers,  sisters,  fathers,  &c.  They  will  make  you  cry.) 

How  the  time  passes  away  !  To  think  it  is  over  a  year  since  I 
left  home  suddenly — and  have  mostly  been  down  in  front  since. 
The  year  has  vanish'd  swiftly,  and  oh,  what  scenes  I  have  wit- 
ness'd  during  that  time  !  And  the  war  is  not  settled  yet ;  and 
one  does  not  see  anything  certain,  or  even  promising,  of  a  settle 
ment.  But  I  do  not  lose  the  solid  feeling,  in  myself,  that  the 
Union  triumph  is  assured,  whether  it  be  sooner  or  whether  it  be 
later,  or  whatever  roundabout  way  we  may  be  led  there ;  and  I 
find  I  don't  change  that  conviction  from  any  reverses  we  meet, 


LAST  OF  THE  WAR  CASES.  in 

nor  delays,  nor  blunders.  One  realizes  here  in  Washington  the 
great  labors,  even  the  negative  ones,  of  Lincoln  ;  that  it  is  a  big 
thing  to  have  just  kept  the  United  States  from  being  thrown  down 
and  having  its  throat  cut.  I  have  not  waver' d  or  had  any  doubt 
of  the  issue,  since  Gettysburg. 

%th  September,  '63. — Here,  now,  is  a  specimen  army  hospital 
case :  Lorenzo  Strong,  Co.  A,  pth  United  States  Cavalry,  shot 
by  a  shell  last  Sunday ;  right  leg  amputated  on  the  field.  Sent 
up  here  Monday  night,  i4th.  Seem'd  to  be  doing  pretty  well 
till  Wednesday  noon,  i6th,  when  he  took  a  turn  for  the  worse, 
and  a  strangely  rapid  and  fatal  termination  ensued.  Though  I 
had  much  to  do,  I  staid  and  saw  all.  It  was  a  death-picture 
characteristic  of  these  soldiers'  hospitals — the  perfect  specimen 
of  physique,  one  of  the  most  magnificent  I  ever  saw — the  con 
vulsive  spasms  and  working  of  muscles,  mouth,  and  throat. 
There  are  two  good  women  nurses,  one  on  each  side.  The 
doctor  comes  in  and  gives  him  a  little  chloroform.  One  of  the 
nurses  constantly  fans  him,  for  it  is  fearfully  hot.  He  asks  to  be 
rais'd  up,  and  they  put  him  in  a  half-sitting  posture.  He  call'd 
for  "Mark"  repeatedly,  half-deliriously,  all  day.  Life  ebbs, 
runs  now  with  the  speed  of  a  mill  race;  his  splendid  neck,  as  it 
lays  all  open,  works  still,  slightly ;  his  eyes  turn  back.  A  relig 
ious  person  coming  in  offers  a  prayer,  in  subdued  tones,  bent  at 
the  foot  of  the  bed ;  and  in  the  space  of  the  aisle,  a  crowd,  in 
cluding  two  or  three  doctors,  several  students,  and  many  soldiers, 
has  silently  gather'd.  It  is  very  still  and  warm,  as  the  struggle 
goes  on,  and  dwindles,  a  little  more,  and  a  little  more — and  then 
welcome  oblivion,  painlessness,  death.  A  pause,  the  crowd  drops 
away,  a  white  bandage  is  bound  around  and  under  the  jaw,  the 
propping  pillows  are  removed,  the  limpsy  head  falls  down,  the 
arms  are  softly  placed  by  the  side,  all  composed,  all  still, — and 
the  broad  white  sheet  is  thrown  over  everything. 

April  10,  1864. — Unusual  agitation  all  around  concentrated 
here.  Exciting  times  in  Congress.  The  Copperheads  are  get 
ting  furious,  and  want  to  recognize  the  Southern  Confederacy. 

"This  is  a  pretty  time  to  talk  of  recognizing  such ,"  said 

a  Pennsylvania  officer  in  hospital  to  me  to-day,  "  after  what  has 
transpired  the  last  three  years."  After  first  Fredericksburg  I 
felt  discouraged  myself,  and  doubted  whether  our  rulers  could 
carry  on  the  war.  But  that  had  pass'd  away.  The  war  must 
be  carried  on.  I  would  willingly  go  in  the  ranks  myself  if  I 
thought  it  would  profit  more  than  as  at  present,  and  I  don't 
know  sometimes  but  I  shall,  as  it  is.  Then  there  is  certainly  a 
strange,  deep,  fervid  feeling  form'd  or  arous'd  in  the  land,  hard 
to  describe  or  name ;  it  is  not  a  majority  feeling,  but  it  will 


II2  LAST  OF  THE  WAR  CASES. 

make  itself  felt.  M.,  you  don't  know  what  a  nature  a  fellow 
gets,  not  only  after  being  a  soldier  a  while,  but  after  living  in  the 
sights  and  influences  of  the  camps,  the  wounded,  &c. — a  nature 
he  never  experienced  before.  The  stars  and  stripes,  the  tune  of 
Yankee  Doodle,  and  similar  things,  produce  such  an  effect  on  a 
fellow  as  never  before.  I  have  seen  them  bring  tears  on  some 
men's  cheeks,  and  others  turn  pale  with  emotion.  I  have  a 
little  flag  (it  belong'd  to  one  of  our  cavalry  regiments,)  pre 
sented  to  me  by  one  of  the  wounded  ;  it  was  taken  by  the  secesh 
in  a  fight,  and  rescued  by  our  men  in  a  bloody  skirmish  follow 
ing.  It  cost  three  men's  lives  to  get  back  that  four-by-three  flag 
— to  tear  it  from  the  breast  of  a  dead  rebel — -for  the  name  of 
getting  their  little  "  rag"  back  again.  The  man  that  secured  it 
was  very  badly  wounded,  and  they  let  him  keep  it.  I  was  with 
him  a  good  deal ;  he  wanted  to  give  me  some  keepsake,  he  said, 
— he  didn't  expect  to  live, — so  he  gave  me  that  flag.  The  best 
of  it  all  is,  dear  M.,  there  isn't  a  regiment,  cavalry  or  infantry, 
that  wouldn't  do  the  like,  on  the  like  occasion. 

April  12. — I  will  finish  my  letter  this  morning;  it  is  a  beauti 
ful  day.  I  was  up  in  Congress  very  late  last  night.  The  House 
had  a  very  excited  night  session  about  expelling  the  men  that 
proposed  recognizing  the  Southern  Confederacy.  You  ought  to 
hear  (as  I  do)  the  soldiers  talk ;  they  are  excited  to  madness. 
We  shall  probably  have  hot  times  here,  not  in  the  military  fields 
alone.  The  body  of  the  army  is  true  and  firm  as  the  North 
Star. 

May  6,  '64. — M.,  the  poor  soldier  with  diarrhoea,  is  still  living, 
but,  oh,  what  a  looking  object !  Death  would  be  a  relief  to  him 
— he  cannot  last  many  hours.  Cunningham,  the  Ohio  soldier, 
with  leg  amputated  at  thigh,  has  pick'd  up  beyond  expectation ; 
now  looks  indeed  like  getting  well.  (He  died  a  few  weeks 
afterward.)  The  hospitals  are  very  full.  I  am  very  well  indeed. 
Hot  here  to-day. 

May  23,  '64. — Sometimes  I  think  that  should  it  come  when  it 
must,  to  fall  in  battle,  one's  anguish  over  a  son  or  brother  kill'd 
might  be  temper'd  with  much  to  take  the  edge  off.  Lingering 
and  extreme  suffering  from  wounds  or  sickness  seem  to  me  far 
worse  than  death  in  battle.  I  can  honestly  say  the  latter  has  no 
terrors  for  me,  as  far  as  I  myself  am  concern'd.  Then  I  should 
say,  too,  about  death  in  war,  that  our  feelings  and  imaginations 
make  a  thousand  times  too  much  of  the  whole  matter.  Of  the 
many  I  have  seen  die,  or  known  of,  the  past  year,  I  have  not 
seen  or  known  one  who  met  death  with  terror.  In  most  cases  I 
should  say  it  was  a  welcome  relief  and  release. 

Yesterday  I  spent  a  good  part  of  the  afternoon  with  a  young 


LAST  OF  THE   WAR   CASES.  II3 

soldier  of  seventeen,  Charles  Cutter,  of  Lawrence  City,  Massa 
chusetts,  ist  Massachusetts  Heavy  Artillery,  Battery  M.  He  was 
brought  to  one  of  the  hospitals  mortally  wounded  in  abdomen. 
Well,  I  thought  to  myself,  as  I  sat  looking  at  him,  it  ougnt  to  be 
a  relief  to  his  folks  if  they  could  see  how  little  he  really  suffer'd. 
He  lay  very  placid,  in  a  half  lethargy,  with  his  eyes  closed.  As 
it  was  extremely  hot,  and  I  sat  a  good  while  silently  fanning  him, 
and  wiping  the  sweat,  at  length  he  open'd  his  eyes  quite  wide 
and  clear,  and  look'd  inquiringly  around.  I  said,  "What  is  it, 
my  boy?  Do  you  want  anything?"  He  answer'd  quietly, 
with  a  good-natured  smile,  "  Oh,  nothing;  I  was  only  looking 
around  to  see  who  was  with  me."  His  mind  was  somewhat 
wandering,  yet  he  lay  in  an  evident  peacefulness  that  sanity  and 
health  might  have  envied.  I  had  to  leave  for  other  engage 
ments.  He  died,  I  heard  afterward,  without  any  special  agita 
tion,  in  the  course  of  the  night. 

Washington,  May  26,  '63. — M.,  I  think  something  of  com 
mencing  a  series  of  lectures,  readings,  talks,  &c.,  through  the 
cities  of  the  North,  to  supply  myself  with  funds  for  hospital 
ministrations.  I  do  not  like  to  be  so  beholden  to  others;  I 
need  a  pretty  free  supply  of  money,  and  the  work  grows  upon 
me,  and  fascinate?  me.  It  is  the  most  magnetic  as  well  as  ter 
rible  sight :  the  lots  of  poor  wounded  and  helpless  men  depend 
ing  so  much,  in  one  ward  or  another,  upon  my  soothing  or 
talking  to  them,  or  rousing  them  up  a  little,  or  perhaps  petting, 
or  feeding  them  their  dinner  or  supper  (here  is  a  patient,  for  in 
stance,  wounded  in  both  arms,)  or  giving  some  trifle  for  a  novelty 
or  change — anything,  however  trivial,  to  break  the  monotony  of 
those  hospital  hours. 

It  is  curious :  when  I  am  present  at  the  most  appalling  scenes, 
deaths,  operations,  sickening  wounds  (perhaps  full  of  maggots,) 
I  keep  cool  and  do  not  give  out  or  budge,  although  my  sympa 
thies  are  very  much  excited;  but  often,  hours  afterward,  per 
haps  when  I  am  home,  or  out  walking  alone,  I  feel  sick,  and 
actually  tremble,  when  I  recall  the  case  again  before  me. 

Sunday  afternoon,  opening  of  1865. — Pass'd  this  afternoon 
among  a  collection  of  unusually  bad  cases,  wounded  and  sick 
Secession  soldiers,  left  upon  our  hands.  I  spent  the  previous 
Sunday  afternoon  there  also.  At  that  time  two  were  dying. 
Two  others  have  died  during  the  week.  Several  of  them  are 
partly  deranged.  I  went  around  among  them  elaborately. 
Poor  boys,  they  all  needed  to  be  cheer'd  up.  As  I  sat  down  by 
any  particular  one,  the  eyes  of  all  the  rest  in  the  neighboring 
cots  would  fix  upon  me,  and  remain  steadily  riveted  as  long  as  I 
sat  within  their  sight.  Nobody  seem'd  to  wish  anything  special 
8 


114  LAST  OF  THE  WAR  CASES. 

to  eat  or  drink.  The  main  thing  ask'd  for  was  postage  stamps, 
and  paper  for  writing.  I  distributed  all  the  stamps  I  had.  To 
bacco  was  wanted  by  some. 

One  call'd  me  over  to  him  and  ask'd  me  in  a  low  tone  what 
denomination  I  belong' d  to.  He  said  he  was  a  Catholic — 
wish'd  to  find  some  one  of  the  same  faith — wanted  some  good 
reading.  I  gave  him  something  to  read,  and  sat  down  by  him  a 
few  minutes.  Moved  around  with  a  word  for  each.  They  were 
hardly  any  of  them  personally  attractive  cases,  and  no  visitors 
come  here.  Of  course  they  were  all  destitute  of  money.  I 
gave  small  sums  to  two  or  three,  apparently  the  most  needy. 
The  men  are  from  quite  all  the  Southern  States,  Georgia,  Missis 
sippi,  Louisiana,  &c. 

Wrote  several  letters.  One  for  a  young  fellow  named  Thomas 
J.  Byrd,  with  a  bad  wound  and  diarrhoea.  Was  from  Russell 
county,  Alabama ;  been  out-  four  years.  Wrote  to  his  mother ; 
had  neither  heard  from  her  nor  written  to  her  in  nine  months. 
Was  taken  prisoner  last  Christmas,  in  Tennessee ;  sent  to  Nash 
ville,  then  to  Camp  Chase,  Ohio,  and  kept  there  a  long  time  ; 
all  the  while  not  money  enough  to  get  paper  and  postage  stamps. 
Was  paroled,  but  on  his  way  home  the  wound  took  gangrene ; 
had-  diarrhoea  also;  had  evidently  been  very  low.  Demeanor 
cool,  and  patient.  A  dark-skinn'd,  quaint  young  fellow,  with 
strong  Southern  idiom  ;  no  education. 

Another  letter  for  John  W.  Morgan,  aged  18,  from  Shellot, 
Brunswick  county,  North  Carolina;  been  out  nine  months;  gun 
shot  wound  in  right  leg,  above  knee;  also  diarrhoea;  wound 
getting  along  well;  quite  a  gentle,  affectionate  boy ;  wish'd  me 
to  put  in  the  letter  for  his  mother  to  kiss  his  little  brother  and 
sister  for  him.  [I  put  strong  envelopes  on  these,  and  two  or 
three  other  letters,  directed  them  plainly  and  fully,  and  dropt 
them  in  the  Washington  post-office  the  next  morning  myself.] 

The  large  ward  1  am  in  is  used  for  Secession  soldiers  exclu 
sively.  One  man,  about  forty  years  of  age,  emaciated  with 
diarrhoea,  I  was  attracted  to,  as  he  lay  with  his  eyes  turn'd  up, 
looking  like  death.  His  weakness  was  so  extreme  that  it  took  a 
minute  or  so,  every  time,  for  him  to  talk  with  anything  like  con 
secutive  meaning ;  yet  he  was  evidently  a  man  of  good  intelli 
gence  and  education.  As  I  said  anything,  he  would  He  a  mo 
ment  perfectly  still,  then,  with  closed  eyes,  answer  in  a  low,  very 
slow  voice,  quite  correct  and  sensible,  but  in  a  way  and  tone 
that  wrung  my  heart.  He  had  a  mother,  wife,  and  child  living 
(or  probably  living)  in  his  home  in  Mississippi.  It  was  long, 
long  since  he  had  seen  them.  Had  he  caus'd  a  letter  to  be  sent 
them  since  he  got  here  in  Washington  ?  No  answer.  I  repeated 


LAST  OF  THE   WAR   CASES.  nj 

the  question,  very  slowly  and  soothingly.  He  could  not  tell 
whether  he  had  or  not — things  of  late  seem'd  to  him  like  a 
dream.  After  waiting  a  moment,  I  said  :  "  Well,  I  am  going  to 
walk  down  the  ward  a  moment,  and  when  I  come  back  you  can 
tell  me.  If  you  have  not  written,  I  will  sit  down  and  write." 
A  few  minutes  after  I  return 'd  ;  he  said  he  remember' d  now  that 
some  one  had  written  for  him  two  or  three  days  before.  The 
presence  of  this  man  impress' d  me  profoundly.  The  flesh  was  all 
sunken  on  face  and  arms;  the  eyes  low  in  their  sockets  and 
glassy,  and  with  purple  rings  around  them.  Two  or  three  great 
tears  silently  flow'd  out  from  the  eyes,  and  rolJ'd  down  his  tem 
ples  (he  was  doubtless  unused  to  be  spoken  to  as  I  was  speaking 
to  him.)  Sickness,  imprisonment,  exhaustion,  &c.,  had  con 
quer1  d  the  body,  yet  the  mind  held  mastery  still,  and  call'd  even 
wandering  remembrance  back. 

There  are  some  fifty  Southern  soldiers  here  ;  all  sad,  sad  cases. 
There  is  a  good  deal  of  scurvy.  I  distributed  some  paper,  en 
velopes,  and  postage  stamps,  and  wrote  addresses  full  and  plain 
on  many  of  the  envelopes. 

I  return'd  again  Tuesday,  August  i,  and  moved  around  in  the 
same  manner  a  couple  of  hours. 

September  22,  '65. — Afternoon  and  evening  at  Douglas  Hos 
pital  to  see  a  friend  belonging  to  2d  New  York  Artillery  (Hiram 
W.  Frazee,  Serg't,)  down  with  an  obstinate  compound  fracture 
of  left  leg  receiv'd  in  one  of  the  last  battles  near  Petersburg. 
After  sitting  a  while  with  him,  went  through  several  neighboring 
wards.  In  one  of  them  found  an  old  acquaintance  transferr'd 
here  lately,  a  rebel  prisoner,  in  a  dying  condition.  Poor  fellow, 
the  look  was  already  on  his  face.  He  gazed  long  at  me.  I 
ask'd  him  if  he  knew  me.  After  a  moment  he  utter'd  something, 
but  inarticulately.  I  have  seen  him  off  and  on  for  the  last  five 
months.  He  has  suffer 'd  very  much ;  a  bad  wound  in  left  leg, 
severely  fractured,  several  operations,  cuttings,  extractions  of 
bone,  splinters,  &c.  I  remember  he  seem'd  to  me,  as  I  used  to 
talk  with  him,  a  fair  specimen  of  the  main  strata  of  the  South 
erners,  those  without  property  or  education,  but  still  with  the 
stamp  which  comes  from  freedom  and  equality.  I  liked  him ; 
Jonathan  Wallace,  of  Kurd  Co.,  Georgia,  age  30  (wife,  Susan 
F.  Wallace,  Houston,  Hurd  Co.,  Georgia.)  [If  any  good  soul 
of  that  county  should  see  this,  I  hope  he  will  send  her  this 
word.]  Had  a  family ;  had  not  heard  from  them  since  taken 
prisoner,  now  six  months.  I  had  written  for  him,  and  done  tri 
fles  for  him,  before  he  came  here.  He  made  no  outward  show, 
was  mild  in  his  talk  and  behavior,  but  I  knew  he  worried  much 
inwardly.  But  now  all  would  be  over  very  soon.  I  half  sat  upon 


n6  LAST  OF  THE   WAR   CASES. 

the  little  stand  near  the  head  of  the  bed.  Wallace  was  somewhat 
restless.  I  placed  my  hand  lightly  on  his  forehead  and  face,  just 
sliding  it  over  the  surface.  In  a  moment  or  so  he  fell  into  a 
calm,  regular-breathing  lethargy  or  sleep,  and  remain'd  so  while 
1  sat  there.  It  was  dark,  and  the  lights  were  lit.  I  hardly  know 
why  (death  seem'd  hovering  near,)  but  I  stay'd  nearly  an  hour. 
A  Sister  of  Charity,  dress' d  in  black,  with  a  broad  white  linen 
bandage  around  her  head  and  under  her  chin,  and  a  black  crape 
over  all  and  flowing  down  from  her  head  in  long  wide  pieces; 
came  to  him,  and  moved  around  the  bed.  She  bow'd  low  and 
solemn  to  me.  For  some  time  she  moved  around  there  noiseless 
as  a  ghost,  doing  little  things  for  the  dying  man. 

December,  '65. — The  only  remaining  hospital  is  now  "  Hare- 
wood,"  out  in  the  woods,  northwest  of  the  city.  I  have  been 
visiting  there  regularly  every  Sunday,  during  these  two  months. 

January  24,  '66. — Went  out  to  Harewood  early  to-day,  and 
remain'd  all  day. 

Sunday,  February  4, 1866. — Harewood  Hospital  again.  Walk'd 
out  this  afternoon  (bright,  dry,  ground  frozen  hard)  through  the 
woods.  Ward  6  is  fill'd  with  blacks,  some  with  wounds,  some 
ill,  two  or  three  with  limbs  frozen.  The  boys  made  quite  a  pict 
ure  sitting  round  the  stove.  Hardly  any  can  read  or  write.  I 
write  for  three  or  four,  direct  envelopes,  give  some  tobacco,  &c. 

Joseph  Winder,  a  likely  boy,  aged  twenty-three,  belongs  to- 
loth  Color'd  Infantry  (now  in  Texas;)  is  from  Eastville,  Vir 
ginia.  Was  a  slave;  belong'd  to  Lafayette  Homeston.  The 
master  was  quite  willing  he  should  leave.  Join'd  the  army  two- 
years  ago ;  has  been  in  one  or  two  battles.  Was  sent  to  hospital 
with  rheumatism.  Has  since  been  employ'd  as  cook.  His  par 
ents  at  Eastville;  he  gets  letters  from  them,  and  has  letters  writ 
ten  to  them  by  a  friend.  Many  black  boys  left  that  part  of  Vir 
ginia  and  join'd  the  army;  the  loth,  in  fact,  was  made  up  of 
Virginia  blacks  from  thereabouts.  As  soon  as  discharged  is  going 
back  to  Eastville  to  his  parents  and  home,  and  intends  to  stay 
there. 

Thomas  King,  formerly  26.  District  Color'd  Regiment,  dis 
charged  soldier,  Company  E,  lay  in  a  dying  condition;  his  dis 
ease  was  consumption.  A  Catholic  priest  was  administering 
extreme  unction  to  him.  (I  have  seen  this  kind  of  sight  several 
times  in  the  hospitals;  it  is  very  impressive.) 

Harewood,  April  29,  1866.  Sunday  afternoon. — Poor  Joseph 
Swiers,  Company  H,  i55th  Pennsylvania,  a  mere  lad  (only 
eighteen  years  of  age ;)  his  folks  living  in  Reedsburgh,  Pennsyl 
vania.  I  have  known  him  now  for  nearly  a  year,  transferr'd 
from  hospital  to  hospital.  He  was  badly  wounded  in  the  thigh 
at  Hatcher's  Run,  February  6,  '65. 


LAST  OF  THE  WAR  CASES. 

James  E.  Ragan,  Atlanta,  Georgia;  2d  United  States  In 
fantry.  Union  folks.  Brother  impress'd,  deserted,  died;  now 
no  folks,  left  alone  in  the  world,  is  in  a  singularly  nervous  state; 
came  in  hospital  with  intermittent  fever. 

Walk  slowly  around  the  ward,  observing,  and  to  see  if  I  can 
do  anything.  Two  or  three  are  lying  very  low  with  consump 
tion,  cannot  recover ;  some  with  old  wounds  ;  one  with  both  feet 
frozen  off,  so  that  on  one  only  the  heel  remains;  The  Supper  is 
being  given  out:  the  liquid  call'd  tea,  a  thick  slice  of  bread, 
and  some  stew'd  apples. 

That  was  about  the  last  I  saw  of  the  regular  army  hospitals. 


nS 


PORTRAIT  71Y  OLD  AGE. 


HERE  is  a  portrait  of  E.  H.  from  life,  by  Henry  Inman,  in 
New  York,  about  1827  or  '28.  The  painting  was  finely  copper- 
plated  in  1830,  and  the  present  is  a  fac  simile.  Looks  as  I  saw 
him  in  the  following  narrative. 

The  time  was  signalized  by  the  separation  of  the  Society  of 
Friends,  so  greatly  talked  of — and  continuing  yet — but  so  little 
really  explain'd.  (All  I  give  of  this  separation  is  in  a  Note 
following.) 


BORN MARCH    19,    1748. 

DIED  FEBRUARY    2O,    183O. 


NOTES  ( such  as  they  are]  founded  on 

ELIAS  HICKS. 

Prefatory  Note. — As  myself  a  little  boy  hearing  so  much  of  E.  H.,  at  that 
time,  long  ago,  in  Suffolk  and  Queens  and  Kings  Counties — and  more  than 
once  personally  seeing  the  old  man — and  my  dear,  dear  father  and  mother 
faithful  listeners  to  him  at  the  meetings — I  remember  how  I  dream'cl  to  write 
perhaps  a  piece  about  E.  H.  and  his  look  and  discourses,  however  long  after 
ward — for  my  parents'  sake — and  the  dear  Friends  too  !  And  the  following  is 
what  has  at  last  but  all  come  out  of  it — the  feeling  and  intention  never  for 
gotten  yet ! 

There  is  a  sort  of  nature  of  persons  I  have  compared  to  little  rills  of  water, 
fresh,  from  perennial  springs — (and  the  comparison  is  indeed  an  appropriate 
one) — persons  not  so  very  plenty,  yet  some  few  certainly  of  them  running  over 
the  surface  and  area  of  humanity,  all  times,  all  lands.  It  is  a  specimen  of  this 
class  I  would  now  present.  I  would  sum  up  in  E.  H.,  and  make  his  case 
stand  for  the  class,  the  sort,  in  all  ages,  all  lands,  sparse,  not  numerous,  yet 
enough  to  irrigate  the  soil — enough  to  prove  the  inherent  moral  stock  and  irre 
pressible  devotional  aspirations  growing  indigenously  of  themselves,  always 
advancing,  and  never  utterly  gone  under  or  lost. 

Always  E.  H.  gives  the  service  of  pointing  to  the  fountain  of  all  naked  the* 
ology,  all  religion,  all  worship,  all  the  truth  to  which  you  are  possibly  eligible 
— namely  in  yourself  and  your  inherent  relations.  Others  talk  of  Bibles, 
saints,  churches,  exhortations,  vicarious  atonements — the  canons  outside  of 
yourself  and  apart  from  man — E.  H.  to  the  religion  inside  of  man's  very  own 
nature.  This  he  incessantly  labors  to  kindle,  nourish,  educate,  bring  forward 
and  strengthen.  He  is  the  most  democratic  of  the  religionists — the  prophets. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  both  the  curious  fate  and  death  of  his  four  sons,  and 
the  facts  (and  dwelling  on  them)  of  George  Fox's  strange  early  life,  and  per 
manent  "  conversion,"  had  much  to  do  with  the  peculiar  and  sombre  ministry 
and  style  of  E.  H.  from  the  first,  and  confirmed  him  all  through.  One  must 
not  be  dominated  by  the  man's  almost  absurd  saturation  in  cut  and  dried  biblical 
phraseology,  and  in  ways,  talk,  and  standard,  regardful  mainly  of  the  one  need 
he  dwelt  on,  above  all  the  rest.  This  main  need  he  drove  home  to  the  soul ; 
the  canting  and  sermonizing  soon  exhale  away  to  any  auditor  that  realizes 
what  E.  H.  is  for  and  after.  The  present  paper,  (a  broken  memorandum  of 
his  formation,  his  earlier  life,)  is  the  cross-notch  that  rude  wanderers  make  in 
the  woods,  to  remind  them  afterward  of  some  matter  of  first-rate  importance 
and  full  investigation.  (Remember  too,  that  E.  H.  was  a  thorough  believer  itt 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  in  his  way.) 

The  following  are  really  but  disjointed  fragments  recall'd  to  serve  and  eke 
out  here  the  lank  printed  pages  of  what  I  commenc'd  unwittingly  two  months 
ago.  Now,  as  I  am  well  in  for  it,  comes  an  old  attack,  the  sixth  or  seventh 
recurrence,  of  my  war-paralysis,  dulling  me  from  putting  the  notes  in  shape, 
and  threatening  any  further  action,  head  or  body. 

—  W.    W.,  Camden,  N.  J .,   July,  1888. 

("9) 


I20  ELI  AS  HICKS. 

To  BEGIN  with,  my  theme  is  comparatively  featureless.  The 
great  historian  has  pass'd  by  the  life  of  Elias  Hicks  quite  with 
out  glance  or  touch.  Yet  a  man  might  commence  and  overhaul 
it  as  furnishing  one  of  the  amplest  historic  and  biography's  back 
grounds.  While  the  foremost  actors  and  events  from  1750  to 
1830  both  in  Europe  and  America  were  crowding  each  other  on 
the  world's  stage — While  so  many  kings,  queens,  soldiers,  phil- 
osophs,  musicians,  voyagers,  litterateurs,  enter  one  side,  cross  the 
boards,  and  disappear — amid  loudest  reverberating  names — Fred 
erick  the  Great,  Swedenborg,  Junius,  Voltaire,  Rousseau,  Lin- 
neus,  Herschel — curiously  contemporary  with  the  long  life  of 
Goethe — through  the  occupancy  of  the  British  throne  by  George 
the  Third — amid  stupendous  visible  political  and  social  revolu 
tions,  and  far  more  stupendous  invisible  moral  ones — while  the 
many  quarto  volumes  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Franchise  are  being 
published  at  fits  and  intervals,  by  Diderot,  in  Paris — while  Haydn 
and  Beethoven  and  Mozart  and  Weber  are  working  out  their  har 
monic  compositions — while  Mrs.  Siddons  and  Talma  and  Kean 
are  acting — while  Mungo  Park  explores  Africa,  and  Capt.  Cook 
circumnavigates  the  globe — through  all  the  fortunes  of  the  Amer 
ican  Revolution,  the  beginning,  continuation  and  end,  the  bat 
tle  of  Brooklyn,  the  surrender  at  Saratoga,  the  final  peace  of 
'83 — through  the  lurid  tempest  of  the  French  Revolution,  the 
execution  of  the  king  and  queen,  and  the  Reign  of  Terror — 
through  the  whole  of  the  meteor-career  of  Napoleon — through 
all  Washington's,  Adams's,  Jefferson's,  Madison's,  and  Monroe's 
Presideritiads — amid  so  many  flashing  lists  of  names,  (indeed 
there  seems  hardly,  in  any  department,  any  end  to  them,  Old 
World  or  New,)  Franklin,  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  Mirabeau,  Fox, 
Nelson,  Paul  Jones,  Kant,  Fichte,  and  Hegel,  Fulton,  Walter 
Scott,  Byron,  Mesmer,  Champollion — Amid  pictures  that  dart 
upon  me  even  as  I  speak,  and  glow  and  mix  and  coruscate  and 
fade  like  aurora  boreales — Louis  the  i6th  threaten'd  by  the  mob, 
the  trial  of  Warren  Hastings,  the  death-bed  of  Robert  Burns, 
Wellington  at  Waterloo,  Decatur  capturing  the  Macedonian,  or 
the  sea-fight  between  the  Chesapeake  and  the  Shannon — During 
all  these  whiles,  I  say,  and  though  on  a  far  different  grade,  run 
ning  parallel  and  contemporary  with  all — a  curious  quiet  yet  busy 
life  centred  in  a  little  country  village  on  Long  Island,  and  within 
sound  on  still  nights  of  the  mystic  surf- beat  of  the  sea.  About 
this  life,  this  Personality — neither  soldier,  nor  scientist,  nor 
litterateur — I  propose  to  occupy  a  few  minutes  in  fragmentary 
talk,  to  give  some  few  melanges,  disconnected  impressions,  statis 
tics,  resultant  groups,  pictures,  thoughts  of  him,  or  radiating 
from  him. 


ELIAS  HICKS.  121 

Elias  Hicks  was  born  March  19,  1748,  in  Hempstead  township, 
Queens  county,  Long  Island,  New  York  State,  near  a  village 
bearing  the  old  Scripture  name  of  Jericho,  (a  mile  or  so  north 
and  east  of  the  present  Hicksville,  on  the  L.  I.  Railroad.)  His 
father  and  mother  were  Friends,  of  that  class  working  with  their 
own  hands,  and  mark'd  by  neither  riches  nor  actual  poverty. 
Elias  as  a  child  and  youth  had  small  education  from  letters,  but 
largely  learn'd  from  Nature's  schooling.  He  grew  up  even  in 
his  ladhood  a  thorough  gunner  and  fisherman.  The  farm  of  his 
parents  lay  on  the  south  or  sea-shore  side  of  Long  Island,  (they 
had  early  removed  from  Jericho,)  one  of  the  best  regions  in  the 
world  for  wild  fowl  and  for  fishing.  Elias  became  a  good  horse 
man,  too,  and  knew  the  animal  well,  riding  races ;  also  a  singer, 
fond  of  "vain  songs,"  as  he  afterwards  calls  them;  a  dancer, 
too,  at  the  country  balls.  When  a  boy  of  13  he  had  gone  to  live 
with  an  elder  brother ;  and  when  about  17  he  changed  again  and 
went  as  apprentice  to  the  carpenter's  trade.  The  time  of  all  this 
was  before  the  Revolutionary  War,  and  the  locality  30  to  40  miles 
from  New  York  city.  My  great-grandfather,  Whitman,  was  often 
with  Elias  at  these  periods,  and  at  merry-makings  and  sleigh- 
rides  in  winter  over  "  the  plains." 

How  well  I  remember  the  region — the  flat  plains  of  the  middle 
of  Long  Island,  as  then,  with  their  prairie-like  vistas  and  grassy 
patches  in  every  direction,  and  the  «  kill-calf  and  herds  of  cattle 
and  sheep.  Then  the  South  Bay  and  shores  and  the  salt  meadows, 
and  the  sedgy  smell,  and  numberless  little  bayous  and  hummock- 
islands  in  the  waters,  the  habitat  of  every  sort  of  fish  and  aquatic 
fowl  of  North  America.  And  the  bay  men — a  strong,  wild,  pecu 
liar  race — now  extinct,  or  rather  entirely  changed.  And  the 
beach  outside  the  sandy  bars,  sometimes  many  miles  at  a  stretch, 
with  their  old  history  of  wrecks  and  storms — the  weird,  white- 
gray  beach — not  without  its  tales  of  pathos — tales,  too,  of  grandest 
heroes  and  heroisms. 

In  such  scenes  and  elements  and  influences— in  the  midst  of 
Nature  and  along  the  shores  of  the  sea — Elias  Hicks  was  fash 
ion 'd  through  boyhood  and  early  manhood,  to  maturity.  But  a 
moral  and  mental  and  emotional  change  was  imminent.  Along 
at  this  time  he  says : 

My  apprenticeship  being  now  expir'd,  I  gradually  withdrew  from  the  com 
pany  of  my  former  associates,  became  more  acquainted  with  Friends,  and  was 
more  frequent  in  my  attendance  of  meetings;  and  although  this  was  in  some 
degree  profitable  to  me,  yet  I  made  but  slow  progress  in  my  religious  improve 
ment.  The  occupation  of  part  of  my  time  in  fishing  and  fowling  had  fre 
quently  tended  to  preserve  me  from  falling  into  hurtful  associations ;  but 
through  the  rising  intimations  and  reproofs  of  divine  grace  in  my  heart,  I  now 


122  EL  I  AS  HICKS. 

began  to  feel  that  the  manner  in  which  I  sometimes  amus'd  myself  with  my 
gun  was  not  without  sin ;  for  although  I  mostly  preferr'd  going  alone,  and 
while  waiting  in  stillness  for  the  coming  of  the  fowl,  my  mind  was  at  time.s  so- 
taken  up  in  divine  meditations,  that  the  opportunities  were  seasons  of  instruc 
tion  and  comfort  to  me ;  yet,  on  other  occasions,  when  accompanied  by  some 
of  my  acquaintances,  and  when  no  fowls  appear'd  which  would  be  useful  to 
us  after  being  obtain'd,  we  sometimes,  from  wantonness  or  for  mere  diversion, 
would  destroy  the  small  birds  which  could  be  of  no  service  to  us.  This  cruel 
procedure  affects  my  heart  while  penning  these  lines. 

In  his  23d  year  Elias  was  married,  by  the  Friends'  ceremony, 
to  Jemima  Seaman.  His  wife  was  an  only  child  ;  the  parents 
were  well  off  for  common  people,  and  at  their  request  the  son- 
in-law  mov'd  home  with  them  and  carried  on  the  farm — which 
at  their  decease  became  his  own,  and  he  liv'd  there  all  his  re 
maining  life.  Of  this  matrimonial  part  of  his  career,  (it  con 
tinued,  and  with  unusual  happiness,  for  58  years,)  he  says,  giving 
the  account  of  his  marriage: 

On  this  important  occasion,  we  felt  the  clear  and  consoling  evidence  of 
divine  truth,  and  it  remain'd  with  us  as  a  seal  upon  our  spirits,  strengthening 
us  mutually  to  bear,  with  becoming  fortitude,  the  vicissitudes  and  trials  which 
fell  to  our  lot,  and  of  which  we  had  a  large  share  in  passing  through  this 
probationary  state.  My  wife,  although  not  of  a  very  strong  constitution,  liv'd 
to  be  the  mother  of  eleven  children,  four  sons  and  seven  daughters.  Our 
second  daughter,  a  very  lovely,  promising  child,  died  when  young,  with  the 
small-pox,  and  the  youngest  was  not  living  at  its  birth.  The  rest  all  arriv'd 
to  years  of  discretion,  and  afforded  us  considerable  comfort,  as  they  prov'd  to- 
be  in  a  good  degree  dutiful  children.  All  our  sons,  however,  were  of  weak 
constitutions,  and  were  not  able  to  take  care  of  themselves,  being  so  enfeebl'd 
as  not  to  be  able  to  walk  after  the  ninth  or  tenth  year  of  their  age.  The  two 
eldest  died  in  the  fifteenth  year  of  their  age,  the  third  in  his  seventeenth  year, 
and  the  youngest  was  nearly  nineteen  when  he  died.  But,  although  thus 
helpless,  the  innocency  of  their  lives,  and  the  resigned  cheerfulness  of  their 
dispositions  to  their  allotments,  made  the  labor  and  toil  of  taking  care  of 
them  agreeable  and  pleasant;  and  I  trust  we  were  preserv'd  from  murmuring 
or  repining,  believing  the  dispensation  to  be  in  wisdom,  and  according  to  the 
will  and  gracious  disposing  of  an  all- wise  providence,  for  purposes  best  known 
to  himself.  And  when  I  have  observ'd  the  great  anxiety  and  affliction  which 
many  parents  have  with  undutiful  children  who  are  favor'd  with  health,  espe 
cially  their  sons,  I  could  perceive  very  few  whose  troubles  and  exercises,  on 
that  account,  did  not  far  exceed  ours.  The  weakness  and  bodily  infirmity  of 
our  sons  tended  to  keep  them  much  out  of  the  way  of  the  troubles  and  tempta 
tions  of  the  world;  and  we  believ'd  that  in  their  death  they  were  happy,  and 
admitted  into  the  realms  of  peace  and  joy:  a  reflection,  the  most  comfortable 
and  joyous  that  parents  can  have  in  regard  to  their  tender  offspring. 

Of  a  serious  and  reflective  turn,  by  nature,  and  from  his  read 
ing  and  surroundings,  Elias  had  more  than  once  markedly  devo 
tional  inward  intimations.  These  feelings  increas'd  in  frequency 
and  strength,  until  soon  the  following : 


EL  I  AS  HICKS.  I23 

About  the  twenty-sixth  year  of  my  age  I  was  again  brought,  by  the  opera 
tive  influence  of  divine  grace,  under  deep  concern  of  mind  ;  and  was  led, 
through  adorable  mercy,  to  see,  that  although  I  had  ceas'd  from  many  sins 
and  vanities  qf  my  youth,  yet  there  were  many  remaining  that  I  was  still 
guilty  of,  which  were  not  yet  aton'd  for,  and  for  which  I  now  felt  the  judg 
ments  of  God  to  rest  upon  me.  This  caus'd  ane  to  cry  earnestly  to  the  Most 
High  for  pardon  and  redemption,  and  he  graciously  condescended  to  hear  my 
cry,  and  to  open  a  way  before  me,  wherein  I  must  walk,  in  order  to  experi 
ence  reconciliation  with  him;  and  as  I  abode  in  watchfulness  and  deep 
humiliation  before  him,  light  broke  forth  out  of  obscurity,  and  my  darkness 
became  as  the  noon-day.  I  began  to  have  openings  leading  to  the  ministry, 
which  brought  me  under  close  exercise  and  deep  travail  of  spirit ;  for  although 
I  had  for  some  lime  spoken  on  subjects  of  business  in  monthly  and  prepara 
tive  meetings,  yet  the  prospect  of  opening  my  mouth  in  public  meetings  was  a 
close  trial ;  but  I  endeavor'd  to  keep  my  mind  quiet  and  resign'd  to  the 
heavenly  call,  if  it  should  be  made  clear  to  me  to  be  my  duty.  Nevertheless, 
as  I  was,  soon  after,  sitting  in  a  meeting,  in  much  weightiness  of  spirit,  a 
secret,  though  clear,  intimation  accompanied  me  to  speak  a  few  words,  which 
were  then  given  to  me  to  ulter,  yet  fear  so  prevail'd,  that  I  did  not  yield  to 
the  intimation.  For  this  omission,  I  felt  close  rebuke,  and  judgment  seem'd, 
for  some  time,  to  cover  my  mind ;  but  as  I  humbl'd  myself  under  the  Lord's 
mighty  hand,  he  again  lifted  up  the  light  of  his  countenance  upon  me,  and 
enabl'd  me  to  renew  covenant  with  him,  that  if  he  would  pass  by  this  my 
offence,  I  would,  in  future,  be  faithful,  if  he  should  again  require  such  a  ser 
vice  of  me. 


The  Revolutionary  War  following,  tried  the  sect  of  Friends 
more  than  any..  The  difficulty  was  to  steer  between  their  con 
victions  as  patriots*  and  their  pledges  of  non-warring  peace. 
Here  is  the  way  they  solv'd  the  problem: 

A  war,  with  all  its  cruel  and  destructive  effects,  having  raged  for  several 
years,  between  the  British  Colonies  in  North  America  and  the  mother  country, 
Friends,  as  well  as  others,  were  expos'd  to  many  severe  trials  and  sufferings ; 
yet,  in  the  colony  of  New  York,  Friends,  who  stood  faithful  to  their  princi 
ples,  and  did  not  meddle  in  the  controversy,  had,  after  a  short  period  at  first, 
considerable  favor  allow'd  them.  The  yearly  meeting  was  held  steadily,  dur 
ing  the  war,  on  Long  Island,  where  the  king's  party  had  the  rule ;  yet  Friends 
from  the  Main,  where  the  American  army  ruled,  had  free  passage  through 
both  armies  to  attend  it,  and  any  other  meetings  they  were  desirous  of  attend 
ing,  except  in  a  few  instances.  This  was  a  favor  which  the  parties  would  not 
grant  to  their  best  friends,  who  were  of  a  warlike  disposition ;  which  shows 
what  great  advantages  would  redound  to  mankind,  were  they  all  of  this 
pacific  spirit.  I  pass'd  myself  through  the  lines  of  both  armies  six  times  during 
the  war,  without  molestation,  both  parties  generally  receiving  me  with  open 
ness  and  civility;  and  although  I  had  to  pass  over  a  tract  of  country,  between 
the  two  armies,  sometimes  more  than  thirty  miles  in  extent,  and  which  was 
much  frequented  by  robbers,  a  set,  in  general,  of  cruel,  unprincipled  banditti, 
issuing  out  from  both  parties,  yet,  excepting  once,  I  met  with  no  interruption 
even  from  them.  But  although  Friends  in  general  experienc'd  many  favors 
and  deliverances,  yet  those  scenes  of  war  and  confusion  occasion'd  many 
trials  and  provings  in  various  ways  to  the  faithful.  One  circumstance  I  am 


124 


ELIAS  HICKS. 


willing  to  mention,  as  it  caus'cl  me  considerable  exercise  and  concern.  There 
was  a  large  cellar  under  the  new  meeting-house  belonging  to  Friends  in  New 
York,  which  was  generally  let  as  a  store.  When  the  king's  troops  enter'd  the 
city,  they  look  possession  of  it  for  the  purpose  of  "depositing  their  warlike 
stores ;  and  ascertaining  what  Friends  had  the  care  of  letting  it,  their  com 
missary  came  forward  and  offer'd  to  pay  the  rent ;  and  those  Friends,  for 
want  of  due  consideration,  accepted  it.  This  caus'd  great  uneasiness  to  the 
concern'd  part  of  the  Society,  who  apprehended  it  not  consistent  with  our 
peaceable  principles  to  receive  payment  for  the  depositing  of  military  stores 
in  our  houses.  The  subject  was  brought  before  the  yearly  meeting  in  1779, 
and  engag'd  its  careful  attention;  but  those  Friends,  who  had  been  active  in 
the  reception  of  the  money,  and  some  few  others,  were  not  willing  to  ac 
knowledge  their  proceedings  to  be  inconsistent,  nor  to  return  the  money  to 
those  from  whom  it  was  receiv'd ;  and  in  order  to  justify  themselves  therein, 
they  referr'd  to  the  conduct  of  Friends  in  Philadelphia  in  similar  cases.  Mat 
ters  thus  appearing,  very  difficult  and  embarrassing,  it  was  unitedly  concluded 
to  refer  the  final  determination  thereof  to  the  yearly  meeting  of  Pennsylvania; 
and  several  Friends  were  appointed  to  attend  that  meeting  in  relation  thereto, 
among  whom  I  was  one  of  the  number.  We  accordingly  set  out  on  the  9th 
day  of  the  9th  month,  1779,  and  I  was  accompanied  from  home  by  my  be 
loved  friend  John  Willis,  who  was  likewise  on  the  appointment.  We  took  a 
solemn  leave  of  our  families,  they  feeling  much  anxiety  at  parting  with  us, 
on  account  of  the  dangers  we  were  expos'd  to,  having  to  pass  not  only  the 
lines  of  the  two  armies,  but  the  deserted  and  almost  uninhabited  country  that 
lay  between  them,  in  many  places  the  grass  being  grown  up  in  the  streets,  and 
many  houses  desolate  and  empty.  Believing  it,  however,  my  duty  to  proceed 
in  the  service,  my  mind  was  so  settled  and  trust-fix'd  in  the  divine  arm  of 
power,  that  faith  seem'd  to  banish  all  fear,  and  cheerfulness  and  quiet  resigna 
tion  were,  I  believe,  my  constant  companions  during  the  journey.  We  got 
permission,  with  but  little  difficulty,  to  pass  the  outguards  of  the  king's  army 
at  Kingsbridge,  and  proceeded  to  Westchester.  We  afterwards  attended 
meetings  at  Harrison's  Purchase,  and  Oblong,  having  the  concurrence  of  our 
monthly  meeting  to  take  some  meetings  in  our  way,  a  concern  leading  thereto 
having  for  some  time  previously  attended  my  mind.  We  pass'd  from  thence 
to  Nine  Partners,  and  attended  their  monthly  meeting,  and  then  turn'd  our 
faces  towards  Philadelphia,  being  join'd  by  several  others  of  the  Committee. 
We  attended  New  Marlborough,  Hardwick,  and  Kingswood  meetings  on  our 
journey,  and  arriv'd  at  Philadelphia  on  the  7th  day  of  the  week,  and  25th  of 
9th  month,  on  which  day  we  attended  the  yearly  meeting  of  Ministers  and 
Elders,  which  began  at  the  eleventh  hour.  I  also  attended  all  the  sittings  of 
the  yearly  meeting  until  the  4th  day  of  the  next  week,  and  was  then  so  indis- 
pos'd  with  a  fever,  which  had  been  increasing  on  me  for  several  days,  that  I 
was  not  able  to  attend  after  that  time.  I  was  therefore  not  present  when  the 
subject  was  discuss'd,  which  came  from  our  yearly  meeting;  but  I  was  in- 
form'd  by  my  companion,  that  it  was  a  very  solemn  opportunity,  and  the  mat 
ter  was  resulted  in  advising  that  the  money  should  be  return'd  into  the  office 
frorr.  whence  it  was  receiv'd,  accompanied  with  our  reasons  for  so  doing :  and 
this  was  accordingly  done  by  the  direction  of  our  yearly  meeting  the  next 
year. 

Then,  season  after  season,  when  peace  and  Independence 
reign'd,  year  following  year,  this  remains  to  be  (1791)  a  speci 
men  of  his  personal  labors : 


ELI  AS  HICKS.  I25 

I  was  from  home  on  this  journey  four  months  and  eleven  days ;  rode  about 
one  thousand  five  hundred  miles,  and  attended  forty-nine  particular  meetings 
among  Friends,  three  quarterly  meetings,  six  monthly  meetings,  and  forty 
meetings  among  other  people. 

And  again  another  experience : 

In  the  forepart  of  this  meeting,  my  mind  was  reduc'd  into  such  a  state  of 
great  weakness  and  depression,  that  my  faith  was  almost  ready  to  fail,  which 
produc'd  great  searchings  of  heart,  so  that  I  was  led  to  call  in  question  all 
that  I  had  ever  before  experienc'd.  In  this  state  of  doubting,  I  was  ready  to 
wish  myself  at  home,  from  an  apprehension  that  I  should  only  expose  myself 
to  reproach,  and  wound  the  cause  I  was  embark'd  in  ;  for  the  heavens  seem'd 
like  brass,  and  the  earth  as  iron  ;  such  coldness  and  hardness,  I  thought,  could 
scarcely  have  ever  been  experienc'd  before  by  any  creature,  so  great  was  the 
depth  of  my  baptism  at  this  time ;  nevertheless,  as  I  endeavor'd  to  quiet  my 
mind,  in  this  conflicting  dispensation,  and  be  resign' d  to  my  allotment,  how 
ever  distressing,  towards  the  latter  part  of  the  meeting  a  ray  of  light  broke 
through  the  surrounding  darkness,  in  which  the  Shepherd  of  Israel  was 
pleas'd  to  arise,  and  by  the  light  of  his  glorious  countenance,  to  scatter  those 
clouds  of  opposition.  Then  ability  was  receiv'd,  and  utterance  given,  to 
speak  of  his  marvellous  works  in  the  redemption  of  souls,  and  to  open  the 
way  of  life  and  salvation,  and  the  mysteries  of  his  glorious  kingdom,  which 
are  hid  from  the  wise  and  prudent  of  this  world,  and  reveal'd  only  unto  those 
who  are  reduc'd  into  the  state  of  little  children  and  babes  in  Christ. 
« 

And  concluding  another  jaunt  in  1794: 

I  was  from  home  in  this  journey  about  five  months,  and  travell'd  by  land 
and  water  about  two  thousand  two  hundred  and  eighty-three  miles ;  having 
visited  all  the  meetings  of  Friends  in  the  New  England  states,  and  many 
meetings  amongst  those  of  other  professions ;  and  also  visited  many  meetings, 
among  Friends  and  others,  in  the  upper  part  of  our  own  yearly  meeting ;  and 
found  real  peace  in  my  labors. 

Another  ' tramp'  in  1798: 

I  was  absent  from  home  in  this  journey  about  five  months  and  two  weeks, 
and  rode  about  sixteen  hundred  miles,  and  attended  about  one  hundred  and 
forty-three  meetings. 

Here  are  some  memoranda  of  1813,  near  home: 

First  day.  Our  meeting  this  day  pass'd  in  silent  labor.  The  cloud  rested 
on  the  tabernacle ;  and,  although  it  was  a  day  of  much  rain  outwardly,  yet 
very  little  of  the  dew  of  Hermon  appear'd  to  distil  among  us.  Nevertheless, 
a  comfortable  calm  was  witness' d  towards  the  close,  which  we  must  render 
to  the  account  of  unmerited  mercy  and  love. 

Second  day.  Most  of  this  day  was  occupied  in  a  visit  to  a  sick  friend,  who 
appear'd  comforted  therewith.  Spent  part  of  the  evening  in  reading  part  of 
Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Romans. 


I26  ELI  AS  HICKS. 

Third  day.  I  was  busied  most  of  this  day  in  my  common  vocations. 
Spent  the  evening  principally  in  reading  Paul.  Found  considerable  satisfac 
tion  in  his  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians;  in  which  he  shows  the  danger  of 
some  in  setting  too  high  a  value  on  those  who  were  instrumental  in  bringing 
them  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth,  without  looking  through  and  beyond  the 
instrument,  to  the  great  first  cause  and  Author  of  every  blessing,  to  whom  all 
the  praise  and  honor  are  due. 

Fifth  day,  1st  of  4th  month.  At  our  meeting  to-day  found  it,  as  usual,  a 
very  close  steady  exercise  to  keep  the  mind  center'd  where  it  ought  to  be. 
What  a  multitude  of  intruding  thoughts  imperceptibly,  as  it  were,  steal  into 
the  mind,  and  turn  it  from  its  proper  object,  whenever  it  relaxes  its  vigilance 
in  watching  against  them.  Felt  a  little  strength,  just  at  the  close,  to  remind 
Friends  of  the  necessity  of  a  steady  perseverance,  by  a  recapitulation  of  the 
parable  of  the  unjust  judge,  showing  how  men  ought  always  to  pray,  and  not 
to  faint. 

Sixth  day.  Nothing  material  occurr'd,  but  a  fear  lest  the  cares  of  the 
world  should  engross  too  much  of  my  time. 

Seventh  day.  Had  an  agreeable  visit  from  two  ancient  friends,  whom  I 
have  long  lov'd.  The  rest  of  the  day  I  employ'd  in  manual  labor,  mostly  in 
gardening. 

But  we  find  if  we  attend  to  records  and  details,  we  shall  lay 
out  an  endless  task.  We  can  briefly  say,  summarily,  that  his 
whole  life  was  a  long  religious  missionary  life  of  method,  practi 
cality,  sincerity,  earnestness,  and  pure  piety — as  near  to  his  time 
here,  as  one  in  Judea,  far  back — or  in  any  life,  any  age. 
The  reader  wiio  feels  interested  must  get — with  all  its  dryness  and 
mere  dates,  absence  of  emotionality  or  literary  quality,  and 
whatever  abstract  attraction  (with  even  a  suspicion  of  cant,  snif 
fling,)  the  "Journal  of  the  Life  and  Religious  Labours  of  Elias 
Hicks,  written  by  himself,"  at  some  Quaker  book-store.  (It  is 
from  this  headquarters  I  have  extracted  the  preceding  quota 
tions.)  During  E.  H.'s  matured  life,  continued  from  fifty  to 
sixty  years — while  working  steadily,  earning  his  living  and  pay 
ing  his  way  without  intermission — he  makes,  as  previously  memo- 
randised,  several  hundred  preaching  visits,  not  only  through  Long 
Island,  but  some  of  them  away  into  the  Middle  or  Southern 
States,  or  north  into  Canada,  or  the  then  far  West — extending 
to  thousands  of  miles,  or  filling  several  weeks  and  sometimes 
months.  These  religious  journeys — scrupulously  accepting  in 
payment  only  his  transportation  from  place  to  place,  with  his 
own  food  and  shelter,  and  never  receiving  a  dollar  of  money  for 
"salary"  or  preaching — Elias,  through  good  bodily  health  and 
strength,  continues  till  quite  the  age  of  eighty.  It  was  thus  at 
one  of  his  latest  jaunts  in  Brooklyn  city  I  saw  and  heard  him. 
This  sight  and  hearing  shall  now  be  described. 

Elias  Hicks  was  at  this  period  in  the  latter  part  (November  or 
December)  of  1829.  It  was  the  last  tour  of  the  many  missions 


ELIAS  HICKS.  I2? 

of  the  old  man's  life.  He  was  in  the  8ist  year  of  his  age,  and  a 
few  months  before  he  had  lost  by  death  a  beloved  wife  with  whom 
he  had  lived  in  unalloyed  affection  and  esteem  for  58  years.  (But 
a  few  months  after  this  meeting  Elias  was  paralyzed  and  died.) 
Though  it  is  sixty  years  ago  since — and  I  a  little  boy  at  the  time 
in  Brooklyn,  New  York — I  can  remember  my  father  coming  home 
toward  sunset  from  his  day's  work  as  carpenter,  and  saying  briefly, 
as  he  throws  down  his  armful  of  kindling-blocks  with  a  bounce 
on  the  kitchen  floor,  "  Come,  mother,  Elias  preaches  to-night." 
Then  my  mother,  hastening  the  supper  and  the  table-cleaning 
afterward,  gets  a  neighboring  young  woman,  a  friend  of  the 
family,  to  step  in  and  keep  house  for  an  hour  or  so — puts  the  two 
little  ones  to  bed — and  as  I  had  been  behaving  well  that  day,  as 
a  special  reward  I  was  allow'd  to  go  also. 

We  start  for  the  meeting.  Though,  as  I  said,  the  stretch  of 
more  than  half  a  century  has  pass'd  over  me  since  then,  with  its 
war  and  peace,  and  all  its  joys  and  sins  and  deaths  (and  what  a 
half  century  !  how  it  comes  up  sometimes  for  an  instant,  like  the 
lightning  flash  in  a  storm  at  night!)  I  can  recall  that  meeting 
yet.  It  is  a  strange  place  for  religious  devotions.  Elias  preaches 
anywhere — no  respect  to  buildings — private  or  public  houses, 
school-rooms,  barns,  even  theatres — anything  that  will  accom 
modate.  This  time  it  is  in  a  handsome  ball-room,  on  Brooklyn 
Heights,  overlooking  New  York,  and  in  full  sight  of  that  great 
city,  and  its  North  and  East  Rivers  fill'd  with  ships — is  (to  spe 
cify  more  particularly)  the  second  story  of  "  Morrison's  Hotel," 
used  for  the  most  genteel  concerts,  balls,  and  assemblies — a  large, 
cheerful,  gay-color'd  room,  with  glass  chandeliers  bearing 
myriads  of  sparkling  pendants,  plenty  of  settees  and  chairs,  and 
a  sort  of  velvet  divan  running  all  round  the  side-walls.  Before 
long  the  divan  and  all  the  settees  and  chairs  are  fill'd ;  many 
fashionables  out  of  curiosity ;  all  the  principal  dignitaries  of  the 
town,  Gen.  Jeremiah  Johnson,  Judge  Furman,  George  Hall,  Mr. 
Willoughby,  Mr.  Pierrepont,  N.  B.  Morse,  Cyrus  P.  Smith,  and 
F.  C.  Tucker.  Many  young  folks  too ;  some  richly  dress'd 
women  ;  I  remember  I  noticed  with  one  party  of  ladies  a  group 
of  uniform'd  officers,  either  from  the  U.  S.  Navy  Yard,  or  some 
ship  in  the  stream,  or  some  adjacent  fort.  On  a  slightly  elevated 
platform  at  the  head  of  the  room,  facing  the  audience,  sit  a  dozen 
or  more  Friends,  most  of  them  elderly,  grim,  and  with  their 
broad-brimm'd  hats  on  their  heads.  Three  or  four  women,  too, 
in  their  characteristic  Quaker  costumes  and  bonnets.  All  still  as 
the  grave. 

At  length  after  a  pause  and  stillness  becoming  almost  painful, 
Elias  rises  and  stands  for  a  moment  or  two  without  a  word.  A 


128  ELI  AS  HICKS. 

tall,  straight  figure,  neither  stout  nor  very  thin,  dress'd  in  drab 
cloth,  clean-shaved  face,  forehead  of  great  expanse,  and  large  and 
clear  black  eyes,*  long  or  middling-long  white  hair;  he  was  at 
this  time  between  80  and  81  years  of  age,  his  head  still  wearing 
the  broad-brim.  A  moment  looking  around  the  audience  with 
those  piercing  eyes,  amid  the  perfect  stillness.  (I  can  almost  see 
him  and  the  whole  scene  now.)  Then  the  words  come  from  his 
lips,  very  emphatically  and  slowly  pronounc'd,^in  a  resonant, 
grave,  melodious  voice,  What  is  the  chief  end  of  man?  I  was 
told  in  my  early  youth,  //  was  to  glorify  God,  and  seek  and  enjoy 
him  forever. 

I  cannot  follow  the  discourse.  It  presently  becomes  very  fer 
vid,  and  in  the  midst  of  its  fervor  he  takes  the  broad-brim  hat 
from  his  head,  and  almost  dashing  it  down  with  violence  on  the 
seat  behind,  continues  with  uninterrupted  earnestness.  But,  I 
say,  I  cannot  repeat,  hardly  suggest  his  sermon.  Though  the 
differences  and  disputes  of  the  formal  division  of  the  Society  of 
Friends  were  even  then  under  way,  he  did  not  allude  to  them  at 
all.  A  pleading,  tender,  nearly  agonizing  conviction,  and  mag 
netic  stream  of  natural  eloquence,  before  which  all  minds  and 
natures,  all  emotions,  high  or  low,  gentle  or  simple,  yielded  en 
tirely  without  exception,  was  its  cause,  method,  and  effect. 
Many,  very  many  were  in  tears.  Years  afterward  in  Boston,  I 
heard  Father  Taylor,  the  sailor's  preacher,  and  found  in  his 
passionate  unstudied  oratory  the  resemblance  to  Elias  Hicks' s — 
not  argumentative  or  intellectual,  but  so  penetrating — so  different 
from  anything  in  the  books — (different  as  the  fresh  air  of  a  May 
morning  or  sea-shore  breeze  from  the  atmosphere  of  a  perfumer's 
shop.)  While  he  goes  on  he  falls  into  the  nasality  and  sing-song 
tone  sometimes  heard  in  such  meetings;  but  in  a  moment  or  two 
more,  as  if  recollecting  himself,  he  breaks  off,  stops,  and  resumes 
in  a  natural  tone.  This  occurs  three  or  four  times  during  the 
talk  of  the  evening,  till  all  concludes. 

Now  and  then,  at  the  many  scores  anft  hundreds — even  thou 
sands — of  his  discourses — as  at  this  one — he  was  very  mystical 
and  radical,f  and  had  much  to  say  of  "  the  light  within."  Very 

*  In  Walter  Scott's  reminiscences  he  speaks  of  Burns  as  having  the  most 
eloquent,  glowing,  flashing,  illuminated  dark-orbed  eyes  he  ever  beheld  in 
a  human  face;  and  I  think  Elias  Hicks's  must  have  been  like  them. 

f  The  true  Christian  religion,  (such  was  the  teaching  of  Elias  Hicks,)  con 
sists  neither  in  rites  or  Bibles  or  sermons  or  Sundays — but  in  noiseless  secret 
ecstasy  and  unremitted  aspiration,  in  purity,  in  a  good  practical  life,  in  charity 
to  the  poor  and  toleration  to  all.  He  said,  "A  man  may  keep  the  Sabbath, 
may  belong  to  a  church  and  attend  all  the  observances,  have  regular  family 
prayer,  keep  a  well-bound  copy  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  in  a  conspicuous 


ELI  AS  HICKS.  I29 

likely  this  same  inner  light,  (so  dwelt  upon  by  newer  men,  as  by 
Fox  and  Barclay  at  the  beginning,  and  all  Friends  and  deep 
thinkers  since  and  now,)  is  perhaps  only  another  name  for  the 
religious  conscience.  In  my  opinion  they  have  all  diagnos'd, 
like  superior  doctors,  the  real  inmost  disease  of  our  times,  prob 
ably  any  times.  Amid  the  huge  inflammation  call'd  society,  and 
that  other  inflammation  call'd  politics,  what  is  there  to-day  of 
moral  power  and  ethic  sanity  as  antiseptic  to  them  and  all? 
Though  I  think  the  essential  elements  of  the  moral  nature  exist 
latent  in  the  good  average  people  of  the  United  States  of  to 
day,  and  sometimes  break  out  strongly,  it  is  certain  that  any 
mark'd  or  dominating  National  Morality  (if  I  may  use  the 
phrase)  has  not  only  not  yet  been  develop' d,  but  that — at  any 
rate  when  the  point  of  view  is  turn'd  on  business,  politics,  com 
petition,  practical  life,  and  in  character  and  manners  in  our  New 
World — there  seems  to  be  a  hideous  depletion,  almost  absence, 
of  such  moral  nature.  Elias  taught  throughout,  as  George  Fox 
began  it,  or  rather  reiterated  and  verified  it,  the  Platonic  doc 
trine  that  the  ideals  of  character,  of  justice,  of  religious  action, 
whenever  the  highest  is  at  stake,  are  to  be  conform' d  to  no  out 
side  doctrine  of  creeds,  Bibles,  legislative  enactments,  conven 
tionalities,  or  even  decorums,  but  are  to  follow  the  inward 
Deity-planted  law  of  the  emotional  soul.  In  this  only  the  true 
Quaker,  or  Friend,  has  faith;  and  it  is  from  rigidly,  perhaps 
Strainingly  carrying  it  out,  that  both  the  Old  and  New  England 
records  of  Quakerdom  show  some  unseemly  and  insane  acts. 

In  one  of  the  lives  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  is  a  list  of  les 
sons  or  instructions,  ("seal'd  orders"  the  biographer  calls  them,) 
prepar'd  by  the  sage  himself  for  his  own  guidance.  Here  is  one: 


Go  forth  with  thy  message  among  thy  fellow-creatures;  teach  them  that 
they  must  trust  themselves  as  guided  by  that  inner  light  which  dwells  with  the 
pure  in  heart,  to  whom  it  was  promis'd  of  old  that  they  shall  see  God. 

How  thoroughly  it  fits  the  life  and  theory  of  Elias  Hicks. 
Then  in  Omar  Khayyam: 


place  in  his  house,  and  yet  not  be  a  truly  religious  person  at  all."  E.  believ'd 
little  in  a  church  as  organiz'd — even  his  own — with  houses,  ministers,  or  with 
salaries,  creeds,  Sundays,  saints,  Bibles,  holy  festivals,  &c.  But  he  believ'd 
always  in  the  universal  church,  in  the  soul  of  man,  invisibly  rapt,  ever-waiting, 
ever  responding  to  universal  truths. — He  was  fond  of  pithy  proverbs.  He  said, 
"  It  matters  not  where  you  live,  but  how  you  live."  He  said  once  to  my 
father,  "  They  talk  of  the  devil — I  tell  thee,  Walter,  there  is  no  worse  devil 
than  man." 

9 


I3o  ELIAS  HICKS. 

I  sent  my  soul  through  the  Invisible, 
Some  letter  of  that  after-life  to  spell, 

And  by-and-hy  my  soul  return'd  to  me, 

And  answer'd,  "  I  myself  am  Heaven  and  Hell." 


Indeed,  of  this  important  element  of  the  theory  and  practice 
of  Quakerism,  the  difficult-to-describe  "Light  within"  or  "In 
ward  Law,  by  which  all  must  be  either  justified  or  condemn'd," 
I  will  not  undertake  where  so  many  have  fail'd — the  task  of 
making  the  statement  of  it  for  the  average  comprehension. 
We  will  give,  partly  for  the  matter  and  partly  as  specimen  of 
his  speaking  and  writing  style,  what  Elias  Hicks  himself  says  in 
allusion  to  it — one  or  two  of  very  many  passages.  Most  of  his 
discourses,  like  those  of  Epictetus  and  the  ancient  peripatetics, 
have  left  no  record  remaining — they  were  extempore,  and  those 
were  not  the  times  of  reporters.  Of  one,  however,  deliver'd  in 
Chester,  Pa.,  toward  the  latter  part  of  his  career,  there  is  a  care 
ful  transcript;  and  from  it  (even  if  presenting  you  a  sheaf  of 
hidden  wheat  that  may  need  to  be  pick'd  and  thrash'd  out 
several  times  before  you  get  the  grain,)  we  give  the  following 
extract : 

"  I  don't  want  to  express  a  great  many  woras  ;  but  I  want  you 
to  be  call'd  home  to  the  substance.  For  the  Scriptures,  and  all 
the  books  in  the  world,  can  do  no  more ;  Jesus  could  do  no  more 
than  to  recommend  to  this  Comforter,  which  was  the  light  in  him. 
'God  is  light,  and  in  him  is  no  darkness  at  all;  and  if  we  walk 
in  the  light,  as  he  is  in  the  light,  we  have  fellowship  one  with 
another.'  Because  the  light  is  one  in  all,  and  therefore  it  binds 
us  together  in  the  bonds  of  love ;  for  it  is  not  only  light,  but 
love — that  love  which  casts  out  all  fear.  So  that  they  who  dwell 
in  God  dwell  in  love,  and  they  are  constraint  to  walk  in  it ; 
and  if  they  'walk  in  it,  they  have  fellowship  one  with  another, 
and  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  his  Son  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin.' 

"  But  what  blood,  my  friends?  Did  Jesus  Christ,  the  Saviour, 
ever  have  any  material  blood  ?  Not  a  drop  of  it,  my  friends — 
not  a  drop  of  it.  That  blood  which  cleanseth  from  the  life  of 
all  sin,  was  the  life  of  the  soul  of  Jesus.  The  soul  of  man  has 
no  material  blood;  but  as  the  outward  material  blood,  created 
from  the  dust  of  the  earth,  is  the  life  of  these  bodies  of  flesh,  so 
with  respect  to  the  soul,  the  immortal  and  invisible  spirit,  its 
blood  is  that  life  which  God  breath'd  into  it. 

"As  we  read,  in  the  beginning,  that  'God  form'd  man  of  the 
dust  of  the  ground,  and  breath'd  into  him  the  breath  of  life, 
and  man  became  a  living  soul.'  He  breath'd  into  that  soul,  and 
it  became  alive  to  God." 


ELI  AS  HICKS.  I3I 

Then,  from  one  of  his  many  letters,  for  he  seems  to  have  de 
lighted  in  correspondence : 

"Some  may  query,  What  is  the  cross  of  Christ?  To  these  I 
answer,  It  is  the  perfect  law  of  God,  written  on  the  tablet  of  the 
heart,  and  in  the  heart  of  every  rational  creature,  in  such  indeli 
ble  characters  that  all  the  power  of  mortals  cannot  erase  nor 
obliterate  it.  Neither  is  there  any  power  or  means  given  or  dis- 
pens'd  to  the  children  of  men,  but  this  inward  law  and  light,  by 
which  the  true  and  saving  knowledge  of  God  can  be  obtain'd. 
And  by  this  inward  law  and  light,  all  will  be  either  justified  or 
condemned)  and  all  made  to  know  God  for  themselves,  and  be 
left  without  excuse,  agreeably  to  the  prophecy  of  Jeremiah,  and 
the  corroborating  testimony  of  Jesus  in  his  Tast  counsel  and  com 
mand  to  his  disciples,  not  to  depart  from  Jerusalem  till  they 
should  receive  power  from  on  high ;  assuring  them  that  they 
should  receive  power,  when  they  had  receiv'd  the  pouring  forth 
of  the  spirit  upon  them,  which  would  qualify  them  to  bear  wit 
ness  of  him  in  Judea,  Jerusalem,  Samaria,  and  to  the  uttermost 
parts  of  the  earth  ;  which  was  verified  in  a  marvellous  manner  on 
the  day  of  Pentecost,  when  thousands  were  converted  to  the 
Christian  faith  in  one  day. 

"By  which  it  is  evident  that  nothing  but  this  inward  light  and 
law,  as  it  is  heeded  and  obey'd,  ever  did,  or  ever  can,  make  a 
true  and  real  Christian  and  child  of  God.  •  And  until  the  pro 
fessors  of  Christianity  agree  to  lay  aside  all  their  non-essentials 
in  religion,  and  rally  to  this  unchangeable  foundation  and  stand 
ard  of  truth,  wars  and  fightings,  confusion  and  error,  will  pre 
vail,  and  the  angelic  song  cannot  be  heard  in  our  land — that  of 
'glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace  and  good  will 
to  men.' 

"But  when  all  nations  are  made  willing  to  make  this  inward 
law  and  light  the  rule  and  standard  of  all  their  faith  and  works,, 
then  we  shall  be  brought  to  know  and  believe  alike,  that  there  is 
but  one  Lord,  one  faith,  and  but  one  baptism ;  one  God  and 
Father,  that  is  above  all,  through  all,  and  in  all. 

"And  then  will  all  those  glorious  and  consoling  prophecies, 
recorded  in  the  scriptures  of  truth  be  fulfill' d — 'He,'  the  Lord, 
'shall  judge  among  the  nations,  and  shall  rebuke  many  people; 
and  they  shall  beat  their  swords  into  ploughshares,  and  their 
spears  into  pruning-hooks ;  nation  shall  not  lift  up  the  sword 
against  nation,  neither  shall  they  learn  war  any  more.  The 
wolf  also  shall  dwell  with  the  lamb ;  and  the  cow  and  the  bear 
shall  feed;  and  the  lion  shall  eat  straw  like  the  ox;  and  the 
sucking  child  shall  play  on  the  hole  of  the  asp,  and  the  wean'd 
child  put  his  hand  on  the  cockatrice's  den.  They  shall  not  hurt 


132  ELI  AS  HICKS. 

nor  destroy  in  all  my  holy  mountain  ;  for  the  earth,'  that  is  our 
earthly  tabernacle,  '  shall  be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord, 
as  the  waters  cover  the  sea.'  ' 

The  exposition  in  the  last  sentence,  that  the  terms  of  the  texts 
are  not  to  be  taken  in  their  literal  meaning,  but  in  their  spiritual 
one,  and  allude  to  a  certain  wondrous  exaltation  of  the  body, 
through  religious  influences,  is  significant,  and  is  but  one  of  a 
great  number  of  instances  of  much  that  is  obscure,  to  "  the 
world's  people,"  in  the  preachings  of  this  remarkable  man. 

Then  a  word  about  his  physical  oratory,  connected  with  the 
preceding.  If  there  is,  as  doubtless  there  is,  an  unnameable 
something  behind  oratory,  a  fund  within  or  atmosphere  without, 
deeper  than  art,  deeper  even  than  proof,  that  unnameable  consti 
tutional  something  Elias  Hicks  emanated  from  his  very  heart  to 
the  hearts  of  his  audience,  or  carried  with  him,  or  probed  into, 
and  shook  and  arous'd  in  them — a  sympathetic  germ,  probably 
rapport,  lurking  in  every  human  eligibility,  which  no  book,  no 
rule,  no  statement  has  given  or  can  give  inherent  knowledge, 
intuition — not  even  the  best  speech,  or  best  put  forth,  but 
launch'd  out  only  by  powerful  human  magnetism : 

Unheard  by  sharpest  ear— -unform'd  in  clearest  eye,  or  cunningest  mind, 

Nor  lore,  nor  fame,  nor  happiness,  nor  wealth, 

And  yet  the  pulse  of  every  heart  and  life  throughout  the  world,  incessantly, 

Which  you  and  I,  and  all,  pursuing  ever,  ever  miss; 

Open,  but  still  a  secret — the  real  of  the  real — an  illusion ; 

Costless,  vouchsafed  to  each,  yet  never  man  the  owner; 

Which  poets  vainly  seek  to  put  in  rhyme — historians  in  prose; 

Which  sculptor  never  chisel'd  yet,  nor  painter  painted ; 

Which  vocalist  never  sung,  nor  orator  nor  actor  ever  utter'd. 

That  remorse,  too^  for  a  mere  worldly  life — that  aspiration 
towards  the  ideal,  which,  however  overlaid,  lies  folded  latent, 
hidden,  in  perhaps  every  character.  More  definitely,  as  near  as 
I  remember  (aided  by  my  dear  mother  long  afterward,)  Elias 
Hicks's  discourse  there  in  the  Brooklyn  ball-room,  was  one  of 
his  old  never-remitted  appeals  to  that  moral  mystical  portion  of 
human  nature,  the  inner  light.  But  it  is  mainly  for  the  scene  it 
self,  and  Elias' §  personnel,  that  I  recall  the  incident. 

Soon  afterward  the  old  man  died  : 

On  first  day  morning,  the  I4th  of  2d  month  (February,  1830,)  he  was  en 
gaged  in  his  room,  writing  to  a  friend,  until  a  little  after  ten  o'clock,  when  he 
return'd  to  that  occupied  by  the  family,  apparently  just  attack'd  by  a  paralytic 
affection,  which  nearly  deprived  him  of  the  use  of  his  right  side,  and  of  the 
power  of  speech.  Being  assisted  to  a  chair  near  the  fire,  he  manifested  by 
signs,  that  the  letter  which  he  had  just  finish'd,  and  which  had  been  dropp'd 


ELIAS  HICKS.  I33 

by  the  way,  should  be  taken  care  of;  and  on  its  being  brought  to  him,  ap- 
pear'd  satisfied,  and  manifested  a  desire  that  all  should  sit  down  and  be  still, 
seemingly  sensible  that  his  labours  were  brought  to  a  close,  and  only  desirous 
of  quietly  waiting  the  final  change.  The  solemn  composure  at  this  time 
manifest  in  his  countenance,  was  very  impressive,  indicating  that  he  was. sen 
sible  the  time  of  his  departure  was  at  hand,  and  that  the  prospect  of  death 
brought  no  terrors  with  it.  During  his  last  illness,  his  mental  faculties  were 
occasionally  obscured,  yet  he  was  at  times  enabled  to  give  satisfactory  evi 
dence  to  those  around  him,  that  all  was  well,  and  that  he  felt  nothing  in  his 
way. 

His  funeral  took  place  on  fourth  day,  the  3d  of  3d  month.  It  was  attended 
by  a  large  concourse  of  Friends  and  others,  and  a  solid  meeting  was  held  on 
the  occasion ;  after  which,  his  remains  were  interr'd  in  Friends'  burial-ground 
at  this  place  (Jericho,  Queens  County,  New  York.) 

I  have  thought  (even  presented  so  incompletely,  with  such  fear 
ful  hiatuses,  and  in  my  own  feebleness  and  waning  life)  one  might 
well  memorize  this  life  of  Elias  Hicks.  Though  not  eminent  in 
literature  or  politics  or  inventions  or  business,  it  is  a  token  of 
not  a  few,  and  is  significant.  Such  men  do  not  cope  with 
statesmen  or  soldiers — but  I  have  thought  they  deserve  to  be  re 
corded  and  kept  up  as  a  sample — that  this  one  specially  does,  I 
have  already  compared  it  to  a  little  flowing  liquid  rill  of  Nature's 
life,  maintaining  freshness.  As  if,  indeed,  under  the  smoke  of 
battles,  the  blare  of  trumpets,  and  the  madness  of  contending 
hosts — the  screams  of  passion,  the  groans  of  the  suffering,  the 
parching  of  struggles  of  money  and  politics,  and  all  hell's  heat 
and  noise  and  competition  above  and  around — should  come  melt 
ing  down  from  the  mountains  from  sources  of  unpolluted  snows, 
far  up  there  in  God's  hidden,  untrodden  recesses,  and  so  rippling 
along  among  us  low  in  the  ground,  at  men's  very  feet,  a  curious 
little  brook  of  clear  and  cool,  and  ever-healthy,  ever-living 
water. 

Note. — The  Separation. — The  division  vulgarly  call' d  between 
Orthodox  and  Hicksites  in  the  Society  of  Friends  took  place  in 
1827,  '8  and  '9.  Probably  it  had  been  preparing  some  time. 
One  who  was  present  has  since  described  to  me  the  climax,  at  a 
meeting  of  Friends  in  Philadelphia  crowded  by  a  great  attend 
ance  of  both  sexes,  with  Elias  as  principal  speaker.  In  the 
course  of  his  utterance  or  argument  he  made  use  of  these  words  : 
"The  blood  of  Christ — the  blood  of  Christ — why,  my  friends, 
the  actual  blood  of  Christ  in  itself  was  no  more  effectual  than 
the  blood  of  bulls  and  goats — not  a  bit  more — not  a  bit."  At 
these  words,  after  a  momentary  hush,  commenced  a  great  tu 
mult.  Hundreds  rose  to  their  feet.  .  .  .  Canes  were  thump'd 
upon  the  floor.  From  all  parts  of  the  house  angry  mutterings. 


134 


ELIAS  HICKS. 


Some  left  the  place,  but  more  remain* d,  with  exclamations, 
flush'd  faces  and  eyes.  This  was  the  definite  utterance,  the  overt 
act,  which  led  to  the  separation.  Families  diverged — even  hus 
bands  and  wives,  parents  and  children,  were  separated. 

Of  course  what  Elias  promulg'd  spread  a  great  commotion 
among  the  Friends.  Sometimes  when  he  presented  himself  to 
speak  in  the  meeting,  there  would  be  opposition — this  led  to 
angry  words,  gestures,  unseemly  noises,  recriminations.  Elias, 
at  such  times,  was  deeply  affected — the  tears  roll'd  in  streams 
down  his  cheeks — he  silently  waited  the  close  of  the  dispute. 
"Let  the  Friend  speak;  let  the  Friend  speak !  "  he  would  say 
when  his  supporters  in  the  meeting  tried  to  bluff  off  some  violent 
orthodox  person  objecting  to  the  new  doctrinaire.  But  he  never 
recanted. 

A  reviewer  of  the  old  dispute  and  separation  made  the  follow 
ing  comments  on  them  in  a  paper  ten  years  ago :  "  It  was  in 
America,  where  there  had  been  no  persecution  worth  mentioning 
since  Mary  Dyer  was  hang'd  on  Boston  Common,  that  about  fifty 
years  ago  differences  arose,  singularly  enough  upon  doctrinal 
points  of  the  divinity  of  Christ  and  the  nature  of  the  atonement. 
Whoever  would  know  how  bitter  was  the  controversy,  and  how 
much  of  human  infirmity  was  found  to  be  still  lurking  under 
broad-brim  hats  and  drab  coats,  must  seek  for  the  information  in 
the  Lives  of  Elias  Hicks  and  of  Thomas  Shillitoe,  the  latter  an 
English  Friend,  who  visited  us  at  this  unfortunate  time,  and  who 
exercised  his  gifts  as  a  peacemaker  with  but  little  success.  The 
meetings,  according  to  his  testimony,  were  sometimes  turn'd  into 
mobs.  The  disruption  was  wide,  and  seems  to  have  been  final. 
Six  of  the  ten  yearly  meetings  were  divided  ;  and  since  that  time 
various  sub-divisions  have  come,  four  or  five  in  number.  There 
has  never,  however,  been  anything  like  a  repetition  of  the  excite 
ment  of  the  Hicksite  controversy ;  and  Friends  of  all  kinds  at 
present  appear  to  have  settled  down  into  a  solid,  steady,  comfort 
able  state,  and  to  be  working  in  their  own  way  without  troubling 
other  Friends  whose  ways  are  different/' 

Note. — Old  persons,  who  heard  this  man  in  his  day,  and  who 
glean'd  impressions  from  what  they  saw  of  him,  (judg'd  from 
their  own  points  of  view,)  have,  in  their  conversation  with  me, 
dwelt  on  another  point.  They  think  Elias  Hicks  had  a  large 
element  of  personal  ambition,  the  pride  of  leadership,  of  estab 
lishing  perhaps  a  sect  that  should  reflect  his  own  name,  and  to 
which  he  should  give  especial  form  and  character.  Very  likely. 
Such  indeed  seems  the  means,  all  through  progress  and  civiliza 
tion,  by  which  strong  men  and  strong  convictions  achieve  any- 


ELI  AS  HICKS.  I35 

thing  definite.  But  the  basic  foundation  of  Elias  was  undoubt 
edly  genuine  religious  fervor.  He  was  like  an  old  Hebrew 
prophet.  He  had  the  spirit  of  one,  and  in  his  later  years  look'd 
like  one.  What  Carlyle  says  of  John  Knox  will  apply  to  him : 

"  He  is  an  instance  to  us  how  a  man,  by  sincerity  itself,  becomes  heroic ; 
it  is  the  grand  gift  he  has.  We  find  in  him  a  good,  honest,  intellectual  talent, 
no  transcendent  one; — a  narrow,  inconsiderable  man,  as  compared  with 
Luther;  but  in  heartfelt  instinctive  adherence  to  truth,  in  sincerity  as  we  say, 
he  has  no  superior;  nay,  one  might  ask,  What  equal  he  has?  The  heart  of 
him  is  of  the  true  Prophet  cast.  «  He  lies  there,'  said  the  Earl  of  Morton  at 
Knox's  grave,  '  who  never  fear'd  the  face  of  man.'  He  resembles,  more  than 
any  of  the  moderns,  an  old  Hebrew  Prophet.  The  same  inflexibility,  intol 
erance,  rigid,  narrow-looking  adherence  to  God's  truth." 

A  Note  yet.  The  United  States  to-day. — While  under  all  pre 
vious  conditions  (even  convictions)  of  society,  Oriental,  Feudal, 
Ecclesiastical,  and  in  all  past  (or  present)  Despotisms,  through 
the  entire  past,  there  existed,  and  exists  yet,  in  ally  and  fusion 
with  them,  and  frequently  forming  the  main  part  of  them,  cer 
tain  churches,  institutes,  priesthoods,  fervid  beliefs,  &c.,  prac 
tically  promoting  religious  and  moral  action  to  the  fullest  degrees 
of  which  humanity  there  under  circumstances  was  capable,  and 
often  conserving  all  there  was  of  justice,  art,  literature,  and  good 
manners — it  is  clear  I  say,  that,  under  the  Democratic  Institutes 
of  the  United  States,  now  and  henceforth,  there  are  no  equally 
genuine  fountains  of  fervid  beliefs,  adapted  to  produce  similar 
moral  and  religious  results,  according  to  our  circumstances.  I 
consider  that  the  churches,  sects,  pulpits,  of  the  present  day,  in 
the  United  States,  exist  not  by  any  solid  convictions,  but  by  a 
sort  of  tacit,  supercilious,  scornful  sufferance.  Few  speak  openly 
— none  officially — against  them.  But  the  ostent  continuously 
imposing,  who  is  not  aware  that  any  such  living  fountains  of 
belief  in  them  are  now  utterly  ceas'd  and  departed  from  the 
minds  of  men  ? 

A  Lingering  Note. — In  the  making  of  a  full  man,  all  the  other 
consciences,  (the  emotional,  courageous,  intellectual,  esthetic, 
&c.,)  are  to  be  crown'd  and  effused  by  the  religious  conscience. 
In  the  higher  structure  of  a  human  self,  or  of  community,  the 
Moral,  the  Religious,  the  Spiritual,  is  strictly  analogous  to  the 
subtle  vitalization  and  antiseptic  play  call'd  Health  in  the  phy 
siologic  structure.  To  person  or  State,  the  main  verteber  (or 
rather  the  verteber)  is  Morality.  That  is  indeed  the  only  real 
vitalization  of  character,  and  of  all  the  supersensual,  even  heroic 
and  artistic  portions  of  man  or  nationality.  It  is  to  run  through 


136  ELI  AS  HICKS. 

and  knit  the  superior  parts,  and  keep  man  or  State  vital  and  up 
right,  as  health  keeps  the  body  straight  and  blooming.  Of 
course  a  really  grand  and  strong  and  beautiful  character  is  prob 
ably  to  be  slowly  grown,  and  adjusted  strictly  with  reference  to 
itself,  its  own  personal  and  social  sphere — with  (paradox  though 
it  may  be)  the  clear  understanding  that  the  conventional  theories 
of  life,  worldly  ambition,  wealth,  office,  fame,  &c.,  are  essen 
tially  but  glittering  mayas,  delusions. 

Doubtless  the  greatest  scientists  and  theologians  will  some 
times  find  themselves  saying,  It  isn't  only  those  who  know 
most,  who  contribute  most  to  God's  glory.  Doubtless  these 
very  scientists  at  times  stand  with  bared  heads  before  the  hum 
blest  lives  and  personalities.  For  there  is  something  greater  (is 
there  not  ?)  than  all  the  science  and  poems  of  the  world — above 
all  else,  like  the  stars  shining  eternal — above  Shakspere's  plays, 
or  Concord  philosophy,  or  art  of  Angelo  or  Raphael — something 
that  shines  elusive,  like  beams  of  Hesperus  at  evening — high 
above  all  the  vaunted  wealth  aad  pride — prov'd  by  its  practical 
outcropping  in  life,  each  case  after  its  own  concomitants — the 
intuitive  blending  of  divine  love  and  faith  in  a  human  emotional 
character — blending  for  all,  for  the  unlearn'd,  the  common,  and 
the  poor. 

I  don't  know  in  what  book  I  once  read,  (possibly  the  remark 
has  been  made  in  books,  all  ages,)  that  no  life  ever  lived,  even 
the  most  uneventful,  but,  probed  to  its  centre,  would  be  found 
in  itself  as  subtle  a  drama  as  any  that  poets  have  ever  sung,  or 
playwrights  fabled.  Often,  too,  in  size  and  weight,  that  life 
suppos'd  obscure.  For  it  isn't  only  the  palpable  stars;  astrono 
mers  say  there  are  dark,  or  almost  dark,  unnotic'd  orbs  and  suns, 
(like  the  dusky  companion  of  Sirius,  seven  times  as  large  as  our 
own  sun,)  rolling  through  space,  real  and  potent  as  any — perhaps. 
the  most  real  and  potent.  Yet  none  recks  of  them.  In  the 
bright  lexicon  we  give  the  spreading  heavens,  they  have  not 
even  names.  Amid  ceaseless  sophistications  all  times,  the  soul 
would  seem  to  glance  yearningly  around  for  such  contrasts — such 
cool,  still  offsets. 

GEORGE   FOX   (AND   SHAKSPERE.) 

WHILE  we  are  about  it,  we  must  almost  inevitably  go  back  to 
the  origin  of  the  Society  of  which  Elias  Hicks  has  so  far  prov'd 
to  be  the  most  mark'd  individual  result.  We  must  revert  to  the 
latter  part  of  the  i6th,  and  all,  or  nearly  all  of  that  iyth  cen 
tury,  crowded  with  so  many  important  historical  events,  changes, 
and  personages.  Throughout  Europe,  and  especially  in  what  we 


ELI  AS  HICKS.  J7^ 

call  our  Mother  Country,  men  were  unusually  arous'd — (some 
would  say  demented.)  It  was  a  special  age  of  the  insanity  of 
witch-trials  and  witch-hangings.  In  one  year  60  were  hung  for 
witchcraft  in  one  English  county  alone.  It  was  peculiarly  an 
age  of  military-religious  conflict.  Protestantism  and  Catholicism 
were  wrestling  like  giants  for  the  mastery,  straining  every  nerve. 
Only  to  think  of  it — that  age  !  its  events,  persons — Shakspere 
just  dead,  (his  folios  published,  complete) — Charles  ist,  the 
shadowy  spirit  and  the  solid  block  !  To  sum  up  all,  it  was  the 
age  of  Cromwell! 

As  indispensable  foreground,  indeed,  for  Elias  Hicks,  and 
perhaps  sine  qua  non  to  an  estimate  of  the  kind  of  man,  we 
must  briefly  transport  ourselves  back  to  the  England  of  that 
period.  As  I  say,  it  is  the  time  of  tremendous  moral  and  po 
litical  agitation  ;  ideas  of  conflicting  forms,  governments,  theolo 
gies,  seethe  and  dash  like  ocean  storms,  and  ebb  and  flow  like 
mighty  tides.  It  was,  or  had  been,  the  time  of  the  long  feud 
between  the  Parliament  and  the  Crown.  In  the  midst  of  the 
sprouts,  began  George  Fox-^-born  eight  years  after  the  death  of 
Shakspere.  He  was  the  son  of  a  weaver,  himself  a  shoemaker, 
and  was  "converted"  before  the  age  of  20.  But  O  the  suffer 
ings,  mental  and  physical,  through  which  those  years  of  the 
strange  youth  pass'd  !  He  claim'd  to  be  sent  by  God  to  fulfil  a 
mission.  "I  come,"  he  said,  "to  direct  people  to  the  spirit 
that  gave  forth  the  Scriptures."  The  range  of  his  thought,  even 
then,  cover'd  almost  every  important  subject  of  after  times,  anti- 
slavery,  women's  rights,  &c.  Though  in  a  low  sphere,  and 
among  the  masses,  he  forms  a  mark'd  feature  in  the  age. 

And  how,  indeed,  beyond  all  any,  that  stormy  and  perturb' d 
age!  The  foundations  of  the  old,  the  superstitious,  the  conven 
tionally  poetic,  the  credulous,  all  breaking — the  light  of  the 
new,  and  of  science  and  democracy,  definitely  beginning — a 
mad,  fierce,  almost  crazy  age !  The  political  struggles  of  the 
reigns  of  the  Charleses,  and  of  the  Protectorate  of  Cromwell, 
heated  to  frenzy  by  theological  struggles.  Those  were  the  years 
following  the  advent  and  practical  working  of  the  Reformation— 
but  Catholicism  is  yet  strong,  and  yet  seeks  supremacy.  We 
think  our  age  full  of  the  flush  of  men  and  doings,  and  culmina 
tions  of  war  and  peace ;  and  so  it  is.  But  there  could  hardly  be 
a  grander  and  more  picturesque  and  varied  age  than  that. 

Born  out  of  and  in  this  age,  when  Milton,  Bunyan,  Dryden 
and  John  Locke  were  still  living — amid  the  memories  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  and  James  First,  and  the  events  of  their  reigns — wh^n 
the  radiance  of  that  galaxy  of  poets,  warriors,  statesmen,  cap 
tains,  lords,  explorers,  wits  and  gentlemen,  that  crowded  the 


138  ELI  AS  HICKS. 

courts  and  times  of  those  sovereigns  still  fill'd  the  atmosphere — 
when  America  commencing  to  be  explor'd  and  settled  com- 
menc'd  also  to  be  suspected  as  destin'd  to  overthrow  the  old 
standards  and  calculations — when  Feudalism,  like  a  sunset, 
seem'd  to  gather  all  its  glories,  reminiscences,  personalisms,  in 
one  last  gorgeous  effort,  before  the  advance  of  a  new  day,  a  new 
incipient  genius — amid  the  social  and  domestic  circles  of  that 
period — indifferent  to  reverberations  that  seem'd  enough  to  wake 
the  dead,  and  in  a  sphere  far  from  the  pageants  of  the  court,  the 
awe  of  any  personal  rank  or  charm  of  intellect,  or  literature,  or 
the  varying  excitement  of  Parliamentarian  or  Royalist  fortunes — 
this  curious  young  rustic  goes  wandering  up  and  down  England. 
George  Fox,  born  1624,  was  of  decent  stock,  in  ordinary  lower 
life — as  he  grew  along  toward  manhood,  work'd  at  shoemaking, 
also  at  farm  labors — loved  to  be  much  by  himself,  half-hidden  in 
the  woods,  reading  the  Bible — went  about  from  town  to  town, 
dress'd  in  leather  clothes — walk'd  much  at  night,  solitary,  deeply 
troubled  ("the  inward  divine  teaching  of  the  Lord") — some 
times  goes  among  the  ecclesiastical  gatherings  of  the  great  pro 
fessors,  and  though  a  mere  youth  bears  bold  testimony — goes  to 
and  fro  disputing — (must  have  had  great  personality) — heard  the 
voice  of  the  Lord  speaking  articulately  to  him,  as  he  walk'd  in 
the  fields — feels  resistless  commands  not  to  be  explain'd,  but  fol- 
low'd,  to  abstain  from  taking  off  his  hat,  to  say  Thee  and  Thou, 
and  not  bid  others  Good  morning  or  Good  evening — was  illiter 
ate,  could  just  read  and  write — testifies  against  shows,  games, 
and  frivolous  pleasures— enters  the  courts  and  warns  the  judges 
that  they  see  to  doing  justice — goes  into  public  houses  and  mar 
ket-places,  with  denunciations  of  drunkenness  and  money-mak 
ing — rises  in  the  midst  of  the  church-services,  and  gives  his  own 
explanations  of  the  ministers'  explanations,  and  of  Bible  pass 
ages  and  texts — sometimes  for  such  things  put  in  prison,  some 
times  struck  fiercely  on  the  mouth  on  the  spot,  or  knock'd  down, 
and  lying  there  beaten  and  bloody — was  of  keen  wit,  ready  to 
any  question  with  the  most  apropos  of  answers — was  sometimes 
press' d  for  a  soldier,  (him  for  a  soldier !) — was  indeed  terribly 
buffeted;  but  goes,  goes,  goes — often  sleeping  out-doors,  under 
hedges,  or  hay  stacks — forever  taken  before  justices — improving 
such,  and  all  occasions,  to  bear  testimony,  and  give  good  advice — 
still  enters  the  "steeple-houses,"  (as  he  calls  churches,)  and 
though  often  dragg'd  out  and  whipt  till  he  faints  away,  and  lies 
like  one  dead,  when  he  comes-to — stands  up  again,  and  offering 
himself  all  bruis'd  and  bloody,  cries  out  to  his  tormenters, 
"Strike — strike  again,  here  where  you  have  not  yet  touch'd  ! 
my  arms,  my  head,  my  cheeks." — Is  at  length  arrested  and  sent 


JULIAS  HICKS.  139 

up  to  London,  confers  with  the  Protector,  Cromwell, — is  set  at 
liberty,  and  holds  great  meetings  in  London. 

Thus  going  on,  there  is  something  in  him  that  fascinates  one 
or  two  here,  and  three  or  four  there,  until  gradually  there  were 
others  who  went  about  in  the  same  spirit,  and  by  degrees  the 
Society  of  Friends  took  shape,  and  stood  among  the  thousand 
religious  sects  of  the  world.  Women  a'lso  catch  the  contagion, 
and  go  round,  often  shamefully  misused.  By  such  contagion 
these  ministerings,  by  scores,  almost  hundreds  of  poor  travelling 
men  and  women,  keep  on  year  after  year,  through  ridicule, 
whipping,  imprisonment,  &c. — some  of  the  Friend-ministers 
emigrate  to  New  England — where  their  treatment  makes  the 
blackest  part  of  the  early  annals  of  the  New  World.  Some 
were  executed,  others  maim'd,  par-burnt,  and  scourg'd — two 
hundred  die  in  prison — some  on  the  gallows,  of  at  the  stake. 

George  Fox  himself  visited  America,  and  found  a  refuge  and 
hearers,  and  preach'd  many  times  on  Long  Island,  New  York 
State.  In  the  village  of  Oysterbay  they  will  show  you  the  rock 
on  which  he  stood,  (1672,)  addressing  the  multitude,  in  the 
open  air — thus  rigidly  following  the  fashion  of  apostolic  times. — 
(I  have  heard  myself  many  reminiscences  of  him.)  Flushing 
also  contains  (or  contain'd — I  have  seen  them)  memorials  of 
Fox,  and  his  son,  in  two  aged  white-oak  trees,  that  shaded  him 
while  he  bore  his  testimony  to  people  gather' d  in  the  highway. — 
Yes,  the  American  Quakers  were  much  persecuted — almost  as 
much,  by  a  sort  of  consent  of  all  the  other  sects,  as  the  Jews 
were  in  Europe  in  the  middle  ages.  In  New  England,  the 
crudest  laws  were  pass'd,  and  put  in  execution  against  them.- 
As  said,  some  were  whipt — women  the  same  as  men.  Some  had 
their  ears  cut  off — others  their  tongues  pierc'd  with  hot  irons — 
others  their  faces  branded.  Worse  still,  a  woman  and  three  men 
had  been  hang'd,  (1660.) — Public  opinion,  and  the  statutes, 
join'd  together,  in  an  odious  union,  Quakers,  Baptists,  Roman 
Catholics  and  Witches. — Such  a  fragmentary  sketch  of  George 
Fox  and  his  time — and  the  advent  of  '  the  Society  of  Friends ' 
in  America. 

Strange  as  it  may  sound,  Shakspere  and  George  Fox,  (think 
of  them  !  compare  them  !)  were  born  and  bred  of  similar  stock, 
in  much  the  same  surroundings  and  station  in  life — from  the 
same  England — and  at  a  similar  period.  One  to  radiate  all  of 
art's,  all  literature's  splendor — a  splendor  so  dazzling  that  he 
himself  is  almost  lost  in  it,  and  his  contemporaries  the  same — 
his  fictitious  Othello,  Romeo,  Hamlet,  Lear,  as  real  as  any  lords 
of  England  or  Europe  then  and  there — more  real  to  us,  the  mind 


I4o  ELI  AS  HICKS. 

sometimes  thinks,  than  the  man  Shakspere  himself.  Then  the 
other — may  we  indeed  name  him  the  same  day  ?  What  is  poor 
plain  George  Fox  compared  to  William  Shakspere — to  fancy's 
lord,  imagination's  heir?  Yet  George  Fox  stands  for  something 
too — a  thought — the  thought  that  wakes  in  silent  hours — perhaps 
the  deepest,  most  eternal  thought  latent  in  the  human  soul. 
This  is  the  thought  of  God,  merged  in  the  thoughts  of  moral 
right  and  the  immortality  of  identity.  Great,  great  is  this 
thought — aye,  greater  than  all  else.  When  the  gorgeous  page 
ant  of  Art,  refulgent  in  the  sunshine,  color'd  with  roses  and 
gold — with  all  the  richest  mere  poetry,  old  or  new,  (even  Shak 
spere' s) — with  all  that  statue,  play,  painting,  music,  architecture, 
oratory,  can  effect,  ceases  to  satisfy  and  please — When  the  eager 
chase  after  wealth  flags,  and  beauty  itself  becomes  a"  loathing — 
and  when  all  worldly  or  carnal  or  esthetic,  or  even  scientific 
values,  having  done  their  office  to  the  human  character,  and 
minister'd  their  part  to  its  development — then,  if  not  before, 
comes  forward  this  over-arching  thought,  and  brings  its  eligibili 
ties,  germinations.  Most  neglected  in  life  of  all  humanity's  at 
tributes,  easily  cover'd  with  crust,  deluded  and  abused,  rejected, 
yet  the  only  certain  source  of  what  all  are  seeking,  but  few  or 
none  find — in  it  I  for  myself  clearly  see  the  first,  the  last,  the 
deepest  depths  and  highest  heights  of  art,  of  literature,  and  of 
the  purposes  of  life.  I  say  whoever  labors  here,  makes  contribu 
tions  here,  or  best  of  all  sets  an  incarnated  example  here,  of  life 
or  death,  is  dearest  to  humanity — remains  after  the  rest  are 
gone.  And  here,  for  these  purposes,  and  up  to  the  light  that 
was  in  him,  the  man  Elias  Hicks — as  the  man  George  Fox  had 
done  years  before  him — lived  long,  and  died,  faithful  in  life,  and 
faithful  in  death. 


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